Made with Xara © Garden Cottage Nursery, 2011 The garden can generally be broken into several basic components, such as lawns, paths and that with which we are concerned here; the border. The in most cases borders have to give the most impact to a garden, so it is important that they have the best possible start. There are three classic types of border; the Shrub Border, Mixed Border and the Herbaceous Border.  Each requires in increasing order more preparation and maintenance. For all types of border you can invest a varying amount of effort into the preparation of your soil prior to planting.  The amount of work you undertake will depend on the time you have to invest in digging and the quality and type of the soil to start with. The main work of soil preparation is digging by hand, with a spade, machine rotavators give greatly inferior results.  This work is easiest on a flat, rectangular site with a fairly light soil that is not too wet and relatively free of stones and roots. For the basic method of digging a border outlined here you will require: The Preparing To Dig • A good, sharp stainless steel spade • A strong digging fork • A stable wheelbarrow If there are many large rocks or roots in your soil: • A mattock (a kind of pick with one vertical axe-like head for cutting roots and a horizontal adze-like head for prying) • A pinch bar (a heavy solid steel bar used for prying out difficult big rocks) • A strong back or good Chiropractor. The Why To Dig The How To Dig Digging improves the soil by allowing the incorporation of organic matter, fertiliser and if desired, lime, breaking down heavy clods, relieving compaction and to bury annual weeds and expose pest such as leather jackets to predators, e.g. robins and blackbirds, who will soon join any digger. In an already good soil for a shrub border single digging is all that will be required, that is the soil is dug to one spade depth (a spit) and forked over with some well rotted manure or similar organic matter to add goodness to the soil.  Once dug a shrub border cannot be easily re- dug so it is mulched thereafter with organic matter to restore fertility and to suppress weeds. The method below will suffice for most herbaceous and mixed borders. A heavy (soil one with texture like clay) is best dug in autumn and left to be broken down by frost over the winter and planted in spring. A lighter soil (one with a sandier texture) is better dug in the spring, and can have manure spread over the surface in the previous autumn allowing the earthworms to distribute it over the winter. Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora 'Mars' good for late border colour. Penstemon 'Andenken An Friedrich Hahn'  good border plant, awkward name. Get a good load of well rotted farmyard manure, it should be at least six months old. First mark out your border and strip the turf off. Now dig out a trench 1’/30cm wide by the width of the border or split it up if this is more than about 4m. Dig it to one spits (one spade blades) depth.  Take this spoil and barrow it round to the far end of the border and dump it just outside the area. Now fork over the bottom of your trench down to, if possible, a spits depth and mix in some well rotted manure, worms will distribute this throughout the soil. You have now dug the 1st of many trenches! Now dig another one spit deep, 1’/30cm wide trench adjoining your first, this time turning it into the gap left by the 1st trench. Then fork over the bottom and incorporate the manure in the same way as before. This process is repeated until you reach the end of the border and you fill the final trench with the pile of spoil you dumped earlier from the first trench. Now that you have a dug your border leave it for a few weeks to settle. Then roughly level with a push-pull rake and trample it, stepping along the surface in dolly steps. Finally rake to a fine level. It is best to avoid walking on the soil as much as possible from now on as this will cause compaction. When planting try to rest your weight on a scaffold board which will disperse your weight over a wider area. Having a few discrete stepping stones is a good idea in larger borders to give you something to go on when weeding, staking or pruning. The lawn areas immediately around a border are subject to some degree of compaction by all the extra traffic they take as you are preparing the border, to alleviate this aerate the lawn thoroughly first by repeatedly inserting a fork to ¾ of a spit and giving a little waggle then pour coarse sand down the holes. As it is best to avoid walking on the grass put down some planks to better distribute the weight. The hard part is over, now the fun part: Planting As stated earlier there are three common basic types of border; shrub, mixed and herbaceous.  Shrub borders should only need the most cursory preparation and can even just be larger shrubs planted amongst the grass (though this is unpopular with the person who does the mowing). A mixed or herbaceous border needs proper preparation and then proper planning before planting. The secret to a successful border is preparation and careful planning: • Know your site; what is the aspect, is it sunny south facing or shady north? You can use a Sun Chart to have an idea of the amount & direction of sun striking your site and to see at what times of day and of year it will be in shade. • What is the soil like, wet, well drained, acid, alkali, rich or poor, sandy, loamy, clay or peaty? • Is the site exposed to wind, if so chose stockier tougher varieties and you may want a more permanent buffer half way down like a shrub to act as a partition/mini windbreak to stop the whole border being flattened from the side. Try planting backed by a hedge that faces the most exposed quarter so the border can grow up in the lee. • How big is your border. Measure your border and make a plan, nothing too fancy, on this you can mark what you put where. Knowing how big an area you are working with will inform you of the amount of plants you will need. • Know your plants, over and under-planting are both very common problems. Too few plants and you will spend a lot of the future weeding.  Too many and everything will be drawn up and suffer from the competition. So find out from the nursery or a good book what height and spread you can expect from each plant. Get your self a notebook, use it to keep notes on what you planted where and when, use it in conjunction with your plan. You can also add cultural notes or general observations and use it as a gardening diary. Keeping good records on planting will make replacing any losses, correcting mistakes, planning maintenance and identifying plants that have lost labels far easier. There are a few golden rules for planting any border, though as they say rules a made to be broken! The plants at the front and edges should be the shortest running up to the highest at the back or the centre if it is a two sided border. This slopping layout ensures maximum visibility for all plants without the plants in front obscuring those behind. Varying the heights of adjoining plants slightly will give a more naturalistic feel, rather than a smooth wall of colour. When planting herbaceous perennials, where space and budget permit, plant in threes, fives, sevens or nines. Single plants will take much longer to make and impact and too many different plants in a small area can look too bitty and busy. However plants desired to make a large individual impact or full stop and larger shrubs are often planted singularly. Odd numbers look the best and give more rounded, and so less harsh, outlines. Massings of similar textures and colours can work well in larger borders. When choosing plants to have in your border consider their maintenance needs and your ability or willingness to fulfil them. Many taller herbaceous have sinuous stems with heavy flower heads that will need staking, choosing stouter varieties will save on work but limit your pallet. Also many popular perennials are susceptible to diseases, e.g. many Asters are clobbered by mildew and as such are best restricted to more open sites and will do best if sprayed with fungicide. Some perennials may also do too well, running over the top of others or seeding around the garden rather more than you would desire, consider this before you plant a vigorous quick fix space filling variety. All of these have their place in gardens and have their vehement opponents and proponents. You cannot please everyone, so just try to please yourself. In most soils an herbaceous border should be lifted, the plants split and the border re-dug every 3-5 years. this will refresh soil and relieve compaction, renew congested plants and improve the flowering of many types and give you an opportunity to change things round. Walking on and digging a saturated soil will do more harm than good, wait for the soil to dry-out a bit first. We always have a wide range of herbaceous perennials to suit all tastes and situations, feel free to come and ask us for advice. The stunning herbaceous borders at Powercourt in Ireland. Well planed & executed to give a long season of interest. The hedge-backed parallel borders draw the eye to the landscape beyond. Sidalcea 'Elsie Heugh'. Prairie mallows make great early-mid season border plants, neat upright growth & they don’t need staking. All of this planning rather takes the fun and spontaneity of a visit to the nursery (or if you must a garden centre) and seeing a must have plant, still you can always buy it and replace something in the border. There will always be something that didn't quite live up to expectations or that you are just not quite happy with and some regular changes will keep you interested in the border. You may also wish to ‘theme’ your border; a white border for example, dominated by white flowered plants, variegated and silver foliage. A hot border with lots of red, orange and yellow flowers. A specific time for your border to be at it’s peak may also be your theme, an August border for example is likely to have Crocosmia, Sedum and Helenium, Conditions may also largely dictate what plants you can use; if the soil is always damp you are likely to use Irises, Astilbe, Ligularia, Rodgersia and Primula. If it is shady then more spring flowering shade tolerant plants like Pulmonaria, Brunnera and Hellebores will have to be used as there are few later flowering shade tolerant perennials, e.g. Kirengeshoma, Actaea and Tricyrtis. Most people lack the room in their small gardens to have several themed borders and must create a balanced bed with interest over as long a period as possible while trying to get as many of their favourite flowers in as possible in the space allowed. You do not have to limit a border to classic hardy herbaceous perennials, the addition of ornamental grasses, evergreen perennials and small shrubs as well as showy annuals and half-hardy perennials can do much to enhance the texture, look, feel and to extend the season of interest of a border. Mixing shrubs and herbaceous in one border is known as a ‘Mixed Border’. Much has been written about colour, symmetry, layout and impact of borders. The choice of how you want your border to look is entirely down to you: A Christopher Lloyd riot of stunning violent colours or a Gertrude Jekyll soothing symphony, a formal Edwardian 'English' herbaceous border or a modern minimalist or matrix planting, with bold verticals, grasses, metallic silvers, purples and blues.