Recently bought a home with old terrible landscaping. We are doing major renovations inside, so we are doing some DIY landscaping until we recoup and have someone come in and do the exterior work.
We had this tangled up mess of a garden out front that we removed, seeded, and moved some of the maiden grasses in closer to the house. We were going to leave well enough alone until I found myself in a garden center and bought all of these plants lol (I never should have been left alone in there) (Also ignore the porch, that will be next on the list)
I got the following for in front of the grasses (saw they are companion plants for the grasses): (Zone 7b)
Penstamon Dark Towers
Salvia Cardonna
Allium Millenium
Indigo Girl Salvia
Walker Low Catmint
Amethyst Dream Cornflower
The same thing repeats on the other side. The grasses are flanked by old giant yew bushes. The grass stays through the winter until we sheer it off in the spring. I am just concerned now that those giant beds will look ridiculous once the plants die back. Should I try to find an alternative place to put all of this and just leave the grasses by themselves? I was a little to excited that those weed and vine filled beds were gone and wanted something pretty in there. Now I’m thinking I should have left it alone for now lol We can transplant them in the future when we redo the landscaping. Thanks in advance!
by SMN3gray
4 Comments
You’re going to end up with the dreaded “polka dot landscape”. You really need to be planting them on groups of 3/5 of the same species to fill out an area or it’ll just look scattered and unplanned.
Avoid planting on straight lines too, whatever you do.
Stop spacing those pots out like little soldiers in a row. You are creating a polka dot effect that looks cluttered and restless. To get that professional landscape look you need sweeping masses. Group your Catmint together in one drift then bunch the Salvia behind them and cluster the Penstemon. When you plant in solid blocks of three or five they grow into a single continuous texture instead of a bunch of isolated plants floating in a sea of dirt.
Do not worry about the bed looking empty in the winter because that is exactly how herbaceous perennials are supposed to work. The giant yew is your evergreen anchor providing winter structure while the maiden grasses give you movement and texture until you chop them in spring. Once those perennials melt down in late fall you just cut them back and let a clean layer of wood mulch define the bed space over the winter. A sharp edge combined with nice mulch makes an empty bed look completely intentional until spring.
Since you are holding off on the professional exterior work for now you should run a quick test before you start digging holes. Snap a picture of that front yard and run it through the GardenDream web app. It acts as a safety net for DIY projects by letting you overlay different plant groupings and bed shapes right on your photo. It will show you exactly how those plant drifts need to flow together so you get the blueprint right without wasting money or sweating over moving them again next year.
The selection of plants is fine, this bed would be popular with the bees. But you need to 5-10x the number of plants. Not only does it work better aesthetically, but plants actually do better if they’re planted en masse. 12″ spacing max, personally I rarely plant with greater than 4″ distance. I understand that can get very expensive given perennial 1gallons can go for $10-15 each, but that’s what it takes to do it right and have something that looks good and thrives. You can do it in stages if you want, just get 30-40 of the perennials at a time and fill in around them with cheap annuals sold in 4-packs or 6-packs, and built it up over a couple years.
I would also consider adding evergreen shrubs behind the bed. It’s going to look weird if you have all that empty space.
I’m not sure how to post images but here is an image of your plants in a pleasant organization
https://www.reddit.com/user/livingdeadgrrll/comments/1srttve/flower_bed_design/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button