20 ideas to make your garden beautiful
Once you’ve laid out your home, it’s time to start looking at plants, accessories and other garden design features. Tips from the famous journalist and talented gardener Sergei Kalyakin will help you create a garden that will be bright and interesting at any time of the year.
1. Chameleon flowers
Chameleon is an amazing animal that amazes with its ability to change color. However, not only he has this ability, but also some garden flowers. By settling them in your flowerbeds, you will be able to observe interesting folk changes throughout the season.
Homeleon flowers.
- Sleepy and smoky varieties of phlox melodious,
- Some varieties of Hydrangea panicum (‘ramp light’) and Baum (‘Annabelle’), ‘Green Envy’, ‘Akropolis’, ‘Apricot Bells’, ‘Gloria dei’, ‘Keith’s Joy’, ‘Lavendel Pinocchio’, ‘Plaisantery’ ‘ , ‘Sahara Desert’,
- The pink varieties of Dubravna anemone are ‘Kentish Pink,’ ‘Marcelina,’ ‘Thilo,’ ‘Earnest Faler
- And even many yellow secret mountain pine varieties.
2. “Hot” flower beds.
There’s nothing repellent about adding brightness to your garden. After all, Russia’s harsh climate and gray everyday life are not the least bit conducive to the desire to make a “50 colors of red”-themed flower bed.
Hot flowerbeds.
Subtle shades of flowers and leaves in different shades of red – from scarlet to crimson, you can arrange a real “garden fire”. The main thing is not to overdo it.
Another option is to add other “warm” colors – yellow, orange, magenta, pink, purple – and dilute them with white. Such a flower bed will also be spectacular and “hot”. And most importantly, it will lift the mood and cool and cloudy summer.
3. Russian phlox
Russians can rightfully be proud of the domestic contribution to the pigweed Welt phlox snowberry – here we are definitely ahead of the entire planet. What is nice to consider, not only in quantity, but also in quality: The old varieties of selection by Pavel Gaganov and Maria Sharonova were liked by more than one generation of gardeners in Russian and foreign gardens. Modern breeders do not lag behind: they present novelties every year – beautiful and original. In this photo – two new masterpieces from our contemporaries: Phlox with an unusual flower shape, the pride of Russia Yury Reprev and trudescantia “Alexei Lensky” by Elena Konstantinova.
Russian phlox
4. Summer onion
- Aflatonsky, Zebdan and Karatavsky onions are blooming in late spring;
- Black, Rosenbach, Mol, Ostrovsky, and Schnitt Onion are in junior bloom;
- White-flowered, Christophe, round-headed, dark purple, blue, and beautiful arches die in midsummer.
5. Doubl e-Fffect Tulips.
This is the suggestion given to tulips on the package, from which you can expect a little more than usual. Double-effect tulips are often written into the package, as are the terry tulips with peony-like blooms, the multilight (from the bulb gives a whole bouquet of flowers), and the terry varieties with multicolored foliage. There are also more interesting rarities. For example, a tulip from the lily class, but with fringed leaves. Or a parrot y-tulip with variegated leaves.
Left: Summer bulbs. Right: Tulipan double-y-Fffect.
6. Clematis for beginners
To help beginners, the International Clematis Society has compiled a list of large-flowered varieties “for beginners. They are unpretentious, reliable and require little care from those who decide to plant this flowering liana in their garden for the first time.
Left: Clematis. Right: Autumn coloration of perennials
- Early flowering varieties are Clematis ‘Fujimusume’, ‘General Sikorski’, ‘Guernsey Cream’, ‘Pink Champagne’, ‘Mrs. Georg Jackman’, ‘Niobe’, ‘Piilu’, ‘The President’, ‘Westerplatte’.
- Summer-flowering varieties include ‘Ascotiensis’, ‘Comtesse de Bouchaud’, ‘Gipsy Queen’, ‘Hagley Hybrid’, ‘Huldine’, ‘Jackmanii’, ‘John Huxtable’, ‘Kardynal Wyszynski’, ‘Victoria’, ‘Viola’, ‘Warszawska Nike’.
- Among the terry varieties, it is worth choosing those that bloom on both old and new shoots with full flowers, such as B. ‘Diamantina’ or ‘Josephine’.
7. Autumn coloration of perennials.
- The foliage of amsonia, lapwort, Hakonehloa is colored in golden tones.
- Wine-red tones take on the leaves of Cockleberry, Guillenia, Loosestris rod-shaped, Bergenia, Geranium coarse-rooting and Cotyledonium.
- The yellow to purple flowers of the large-flowered bellflower and Erhen’s liatris manage to shrink from yellow to purple.
8. Overflowers with beautiful fruit.
If you haven’t already, look out for perennials with beautiful fruit. You can benefit doubly – they often look even more interesting in the fall than they do during flowering.
Perennials with beautiful fruit
If you set your mind to it, you can gather a veritable treasure trove of “garden decorations” – so varied are the fruits in color and shape. Here you will find colorful pearls (ravens, disorum, arise, some species of peony), buttons (glaucidium, phytolacca), fringe (wolfberry), followers and trailers (symbol carpus, podophyllum).
9. Green flowers.
When people talk about green flowers in the garden, first of all, they mean a large choice of many variations of forms and shades of leaves. And often forgotten are plants with green flowers. This in itself is an unusual quality that surprises and stimulates the exact look. At the same time, such plants in the flower bed play a neutral role of “blank”, smoothing out color transitions and pleasing green tones, from lime to olive, on which the eye stops. Green flowers can be found in almost every group of plants: annuals and perennials, bulbs and houseplants, between roses and clematis, trees and shrubs.
Left: Green flowers. Right: Plants of the Umbelliferae family.
10. Umbelliferae.
You will always associate these with either a vegetable garden (carrots, celery, parsnips) or an herb garden (dill, parsley, cherry, cumin). But they are great not only in beds, but also in flower beds! The carved leaves of many umbrella flowers are irresistible in contrasting combinations with large-leafed plants. And the broken flower umbrellas impress with their perfect symmetry. At the same time, they are so airy that they can play the role of a kind of haze, veil, translucent curtain in the flower bed. Large plants such as angel’s root become an accent in any composition. And small flowers of astrantia and bluegrass will fill the summer with bright colors, but in contrast to variegated annuals, they do it softly and inconspicuously.
11. Tasty neighbors.
- “Architectural” elements (rhubarb, artichoke, sunflower),
- Coloristic accents (“colored” varieties of kale, lettuce, basil, chard),
- Green edge options (parsley, oregano, chives)
- And even vines (beans, peas, cucumbers and small pumpkins) for vertical landscaping.
Strawberries can also decorate a mixed border
12. Rust in the garden.
Do you think the most inconspicuous shade is green in the garden? Then take a closer look at the color rusted metal. This brown-red tone harmonizes with all the colors of the spectrum and never argues with any of them. It will be a backdrop for both the brightest and most common flower and, moreover, will positively accentuate every plant. It will give the old garden an air of romance and self-irony and help the young, older than its years. This color reminds us in summer of just thawed soil with brown feathers and the beautiful and sad palette of late fall, when all the flowers have dried up. Perhaps this is the reason it is so appropriate in every garden.
13. Muesli in flower beds.
In a search for beautiful and irrelevant solutions for natural gardens, Dutch designer r-pit Udolph decided to give decorative grains a makeover. He was so inspired by the result that he took muesli as the basis and already diluted it with flowers. Today he has thousands of supporters in Europe. Examples of his work can be found in Pedo Udolph’s article “Gardens: The New Wave of Landscape Design”.
In flower gardens, ornamental grasses usually play the role of peacekeepers. They smooth out all the inconsistencies and roughnesses, bring down excessive brightness and emphasize the beauty of pastel colors. They are among the first to wake up in spring and welcome it into the garden until late fall. Ornamental grasses in the garden are very effective.
Left: ryegrass in the garden. Middle: muesli in the flower beds. Right: a reliable foundation for the garden
14. A solid foundation for the garden.
If winter is an uninteresting and colorless season in your garden, then you’ve underestimated the importance of evergreen conifers, shrubs and plants with decorative bark. In summer they are not conspicuous, but in winter the color of the needles and bark stands out brightly against the white snow. You can choose varieties of hazel or different nightshade with colorful shoots: from yellowish to orange-red. Or plant a Maak cherry – it has a color of dark amber. It is worth paying attention to the hazelnut – the related “zakonka” and Sverdlovsk IV varieties with twisted shoots – it is a valuable decoration of the winter garden. And, of course, do not forget about conifers, the benefit of now its huge number: from yellow to blue flowers, from dwarf to giant. Other ideas you will find in articles on how to add color to the winter garden, and persistent soldiers: 10 Perennials for the Winter Flower Garden.
15. “Mobile” container garden.
It doesn’t have to look lifeless – any horizontal surface can’t be all asphalt or wood flooring. Plants in containers will come to the rescue: such plantings require care, but are good in that the composition can be changed as much as you want. It is better to choose large containers – the floor in them is slower. It makes sense to add hydrogel to the substrate to reduce watering. In containers you can grow not only annuals, but also perennials, such as hostas, astilbe. For the winter, they should be transplanted from containers or put the pots with plants in a place not blowing (for example, in the basement). In this way, some gardeners maintain collections of garden hydrangea varieties.
16. Pond in mini format
Even a small terrace or veranda in front of the house can be decorated with a pond. It is true, a miniature, but quite enough for water lilies to bloom in it. For this purpose, any wide vessel, the height of which is selected for a particular variety of water lily. Dwarf nymphaea are immersed at a depth of 20-40 cm, larger keep at a depth of 30-60 cm. For the winter, such a mini greenhouse with a water lily is arranged in a winter garden or other non-freezing place. Do not forget: when the water lily rhizome bush grows, it must be divided.
17. Czech climbing.
The Czechs call the rock climbing plant Skalka, and the word has caught on with Russian gardeners to refer to a special kind of rockery. It looks like a natural edition of mountain nature with stones of different thicknesses, standing vertically or almost at right angles on a ridge.
Czech Alpinarium.
In the classic version, the stones are set tightly, and alpine plants are planted in narrow crevices filled with soil, mulched with gravel of the same rock. If the Alpinarium is made to grow miniature trees, the stones can be set more often – then it will not be a real “rolling”, but its distant image, but there will be room for planting conifers.
18. Garden sculpture in miniature
In small gardens, the role of visual accent, the top of the garden performance can be performed by a design piece, proportional to the scale of the garden and in harmony with the environment.
Garden sculpture in miniature
19. A secondhand garden.
When things have served their time in the house, you can give them a new life – this time in the garden. Of course, we are not talking about gaudy beds of old tires, but about beautiful and practical solutions. For example, a molded ironing bed from an old Sänger sewing machine can become the original basis for a garden table decorated with flowers. You just need to choose the right tabletop.
Left: A used garden. Right: insect house
By the way, it is not at all necessary to plant flowers in ordinary containers – unnecessary metal kitchen utensils will work perfectly for this role. It is important not to forget to drill drainage holes in the bottom of kettles, cups and jugs for water drainage. If desired, you can paint “trash” trellises in the theme of the flower bed.
20. Attracting useful insects to the garden
European gardeners have long been installing special houses in gardens for wintering useful insects. They are already sold in stores, you can easily make them yourself. For the simplest model, you will need old boards, hollow bamboo canes, small clay pots, cones, straws, pieces of bark and pieces of brick. Put these materials together, and the inn for ladybugs, golden varieties, wild bees, and rune mothers is ready. It is better to arrange it closer to the ground, so that it is covered with snow in winter. Useful insects in summer attract many flowers to the garden, but they have a special preference for umbrella flowers.
The garden for the lazy: Creating a beautiful, low-maintenance garden
Brightly blooming shrubs, easy-care perennials, tiered compositions. How to make your garden prettier by yourself: Photo ideas
Regular contributor to HouzzRU, art critic. An interior journalist since 2004, she has worked as a freelance writer for the magazine SALON and its supplements “Technomania” and “Decor”, has written articles for the magazines “Idei Vashego Doma” and Interior Digest, for the supplements of the magazine “Interior + Design” (“100% BATHROOMS and 100% KITCHENS”), As well as for Elle Decoration (under the name Antonina Nosikova) I have worked for several years in a design bureau dealing with architecture and furniture, where I was the assistant director, and I know firsthand the complex and fascinating process of project realization.
A beautiful, colourful garden from spring to late autumn – isn’t that a dream? But not everyone wants to spend all their time on the plot, making flower beds and taking care of the lawn. How to make a garden beautiful and comfortable with minimal costs – enjoying the colors of the garden, lying in a lounge chair with a book or rocking on a garden rocking chair? First, intelligently plan the landscape, and second, choose plants that require minimal care. We’ll show you how to make a beautiful garden with your own hands – photos and ideas included!
Think about what kind of garden is easier for you to keep clean – a regular French garden that requires frequent mowing of garden forms, flower beds that exclude even a hint of weeds, or a slightly neglected English one with its free design? Logic suggests that the English version is more convenient.
In the photo: a picturesque lawn with wildflowers will help you to create a beautiful garden with your own hands.The less flower beds in the garden, the easier it is to take care of it. Choose bright shrubs that change their appearance throughout the season. Despite this, it is difficult to imagine a luxurious garden without flowers. How to beautify your garden without much effort? Lay out large areas for a lawn or a picturesque lawn with clover, daisies, oleoresin. Weeds are not so noticeable on it – just mow it down. By the way, daisies are easy to mow and bloom wonderfully, very low above the rosette of leaves.
In the photo: How to decorate the garden beautifully without flowers? – Plant ornamental shrubs!
A beautifully blooming front yard that fills the space in front of the front of the house creates the feeling of a carefully manicured garden. But the rest of the area can be left as a lawn, surrounded by shrubs. Instead of geometric flower beds, create mixborders with a loose arrangement of different plants. They look more picturesque and also look great when overgrown with weeds. Choose plants that can withstand our climate and tolerate frost. Combine plants with different foliage in height, shape, and color to keep the garden decorative and beautiful even when there are no flowers. Arrange mixborders at intersections of paths to complicate the look of the garden.
RELATED ARTICLE… Frost-resistant plants – choosing and trying on
In the photo: deciding how to decorate the garden, give preference to beautiful compositions of unpretentious plants and various decorative elements.
If there is a landscape difference on the plot, do not be afraid to create terraces and retaining walls – they will enrich the image of the garden and make it more picturesque.
A paved terrace will be a great backdrop for flowers, and reduce the hassle of mowing the lawn – a tedious task even with a self-propelled petrol lawnmower.
By the way, quality equipment will make garden maintenance much easier. In addition to a lawn mower, suitable for open flat areas, buy a trimmer with a gasoline engine to cut the grass and weeds around bushes and trees.
The advice is to lay the lawn as soon as the grass is over an inch tall, weekly mowing (or at least once every two weeks) accompanies your recreational gardening. Remember that proper lawn mowing involves mowing in a “serpentine pattern” so that the grass shredded by the wheels goes under the mower blade and runs in the opposite direction.
The shape of the lawn and the organization of the plantings around it are very important. The more growing plantings in the center of the lawn, the more time you will spend. The border between the lawn and solid plantings is another important decision for easier maintenance.
Optimizing lawn mowing is not an excuse to completely abandon the center strip. If it is a tree, shape its crown to a height where you can walk freely under it. Plants that need to be protected from each other, plant no closer than the width of the mowing wheels. Otherwise you will have to mow the grass with a trimmer, and this is quite tedious.
To avoid soil clogging between off lawn plantings, cover the bottom with decorative mulch (such as bark). Between young plantings, it is worth covering the soil with loose material and mulching it with gravel – this will save you from weeds and ubiquitous grass. Or, if freshly planted shrubs and perennials need space between young plants, bright annuals can be used. These simple techniques will not only help you save time on garden maintenance, but also beautify your garden.
What to plant in the garden Refuse to plant annuals in seedlings, those that are easy to develop without care, do not require prior approval, long flowering, as well as the next year on the dusky cattail), flax annuals (Linum grandiflorum ), centuria, flax (Linaria vulgaris), calendula (Calendula officinalis).
Bulb flowers: buried and forgotten tulips and hyacinths are magical spring flowers, pleasing to the eye at the beginning of the season. But imagine what will be in their place in the summer, once the flowers have bloomed? The withered leaves that you can’t cut off anyway so as not to deprive the bulb, accumulate such beneficial substances. But after you’ve completely dried the leaves, you need to have time to dig up the bulbs to dry out. And in late summer or early fall they need to be planted again.
So anything that is picked annually to dry or winter in the room and then transplanted again (tulips, hyacinths, anemones, gladioluses, crocosmias, and tuberous dahlias) is unfortunately not a vegetable.
Article on the subject … Bulb flowers – species, planting and care
It is better to choose those bulbs that will grow well, if you can not dig them up at all. Beautiful, although not very large flowers: Pushkinia (Puschkinia), Scilla (Scilla), Muscari (Muscari), Tramp (Brodiaa), white flower (leukojum, blooms in spring and summer), crocus (crocus) – spring-blooming and fall-blooming, Camassia (Camassia) – spectacular blue flowers, blooms in early summer, decorative petunias decorate the garden with flower balls on high stems in mid summer. Be sure to plant plenty of Asia lilies and La hybrids. And refrain from ostinoks, they are much worse winterers in the middle belt. Care for these flowers is minimal – fertilizer for bulbs.
If you really want tulips, plant wild species: they look quite unusual. Daffodils in one place can bloom well for about 4-5 years without digging. The only problem is the yellowed leaves, which can not be cut until they are completely dry. So in summer, choose a place near it or its leaves.
However, if you can no longer think of big beautiful English garden tulips in the spring, plant the bulbs in the ground in plastic nets – that way you can dig up more and dry out faster. Forget about this process for a year – a summer spent in the ground without drying out won’t do such terrible damage to the tulips that will bloom next year. Perfect “cover” for wilted bulbs are hostas, peony and daylilies.
Don’t be afraid of weeds and keep fighting them. A garden close to the country house style suits a lightly neglected garden. The latest trends at the Chelsea Garden Show are further proof that weeds can beautify any garden.
Leave the natural forms that are characteristic of your soil. They give the garden a more natural look. For example, the common garden killer creates beautiful compositions without a gardener, unites plantings with each other. In addition, it blooms for a long time and is very resistant to heat and dryness. Even burdock with its huge leaves can look spectacular, and thistle with its flowers decorate the composition with lupines and rudbeckia. Read also. Tips for the Chelsea Flower Show: fashionable flowers to decorate the garden
Perennials – Only the most persistent peonies need regular fertilizing, watering before they bloom and cutting the leaves before winter, but this care pays off a hundredfold when the garden is filled with huge, fragrant flowers. Mascots thrive in full sun and even after they bloom, they look as decorative and well-groomed as peonies.
The ornamental foliage and beautiful arrows with white or purple bellflowers of hostas are ideal for partially shaded and shady areas (also under trees, but not near tribes). Hostas should be cut back after the first frost, which will “beat” their leaves, and mulched with soil in October for the winter.
Honeycombs, Siberian (I RIS SibÃrica) and marsh (i Ris Pseudacoru), are easy to care for – they decorate moist, sunny spots in the garden. They should also be trimmed 10 cm above the ground before winter. Bartiris require more care: weeds, digging out the rhizomes (Bartiris stops blooming and starts to get sick when its rhizomes are deepened), lower strips for the winter. Nevertheless, swords are one of the most beautiful decorations in the garden in June. For easy care, choose proven varieties that grow quickly and are resistant to disease.
Sprouse, lupins, and rudbeckia are all very hardy plants that look great in flower beds (longitudinal beds) as well as alone in a mixed bed. In the garden they can be grown directly from seed.
Biennials – Turkish Nelke (Danthus Barbatus), Stock Rosea (Alcea Rosea) – are also suitable for skid and mixed borders and are very easy to propagate. It should only be noted that they do not bloom until the second year after planting, after which they must be removed and new ones planted, otherwise there will be no lush flowering.
Related articles … Perennials for the garden – unpretentious long-flowering plants
Flowering ornamental shrubs To almost completely free yourself from the care of the garden, create a multi-layered composition of beautifully blooming shrubs. Place shrubs of different types, heights and shapes around your garden, by the fence, next to buildings. The more picturesque the better – even if one of them freezes in winter, neighbors will hide its unkempt appearance.
The common lilac is a must in a low-maintenance garden. In May, the fragrance of its flowers permeates the whole garden, and everyone knows the beauty of lushly blooming shrubs. Choose varieties with large double flowers – “Nadezhda”, “Beauty of Moscow” and other varieties of L.A. Kolesnikov, which impress by the size of flowers and winter well in the Moscow region. The only concern is the pruning of the flowering brushes after flowering.
RELATED ARTICLE… Ornamental shrubs – selection and planting
Quickly grows in a sunny place into a huge sprawling three-meter bush, capable of n uzrepletnik. To create a contrasting composition with other shrubs and flowers, choose one of the brightest expressive varieties – Diablo fisocarpus with dark foliage. In June it is covered with white flowers gathered in slightly pink umbrellas. In June orange woodlice (garden jasmine) adorns the garden with its white, jasmine-scented flowers.
White currant (Cornus alba), in its popular variegated form, blooms beautifully in spring, turns an expressive pink in autumn, and with its red branches also looks spectacular in the greenhouse. Plant turf in moist soil, where it develops quickly, and always in the depths of the composition, otherwise you will soon not see any neighbors behind it – turf, like silver loch, behaves quite aggressively and takes up much more space than it was allotted by the plan. Do not forget about the wild rose – after the fragrant flowers, it has bright fruits that will decorate the garden.
After assessing the amount of fall work needed, decide for yourself if you are ready to see forsythia in your garden. This yellow-flowering but leafless shrub makes a big impression in early spring. By fall, its graceful foliage turns a variety of colors. But in order for forsythia to flower well, it should be covered for the winter in the Moscow suburbs: in the autumn, you need to pay special attention to forsythia, ducking its branches to the ground and wrapping them with lutrasil.
Spireas in all their diversity are suitable for the foreground in the composition of shrubs and perennials – Spirae grey (Spirae a cinerea), Spirae Japanese (Spiraea japonica), Spirae vanhouttei (Spiraea vanhouttei) and others. All of them are very ornamental: they bloom beautifully at different times and do not require care. Branches of a small gray spirea in spring are completely covered with small white flowers. In summer and even in autumn (if pruning is carried out after flowering), the Japanese spirea blooms with pink bunches of flowers.
