Growing Ornamental Garden Plants

A visually stunning garden incorporates ornamental plants. Plants that compose the structural mass of the garden and carry the design of the garden should exhibit good foliage, strong form and vivid shades of green.

 

 

On the other hand, ornamental plants should exhibit bright colors and foliage. Ornamental plants can serve a number of different tasks for a garden: herbaceous borders, display beds, ribbon edging, foliage beds and more.

 

A proper garden can be started with plants that establish an immediate effect. Fast-growing plants, especially trees and shrubs, typically lack the character and vibrancy of slow-growing plants. For this reason, faster-growing ornamental plants can temporarily fill a space while the better plants mature. Close-planting can also achieve this effect, though groups should be thinned out when the time is right.

 

Quick, informal effects can be made with Hall's Japanese honeysuckle, a southern evergreen. Rosa Wichuraiana and some dewberry plants can cover rough places. Virginia creeper and other vines can be used for borders of shrub plantations.

A good ornamental hedge thrives in well-prepared deep soil. They should be set close and sheared twice a year. The arbor vitae is the most serviceable evergreen hedge. Coarser hedges include the Norway spruce and the Scotch and Austrian pines. The common hemlock also serves a garden well.

 

Hedges require trimming the year after they are set, but should not be sheared closely until they reach the desired height. Plants that are allowed to grow for a year or two without trimming will lose their lower leaves, producing unsightly gaps.

Three rules guide the choice of plants for a hardy border:

Before setting border plants, the ground should be spaded. Once the plants are established and the border is filled, digging should be as infrequent as possible. Digging disturbs the roots and crowns.

 

Borders should be planted thick so the plants run together and give off an effect of continuous flow. Distance between plants depends on the type of plant. Common perennials such as bleeding heart and hollyhocks should be planted 12 to 18 inches apart. Lilacs go as far as four feet apart. Most shrubs should be placed three feet apart.

 

For borders of perennial flowers, the best results can be achieved if a large group of each kind or variety is grown. Herbaceous borders offer flexible garden design. You should allow ample space for each perennial root—as much as four square feet. If the spaces do not fill up after the first year, you can scatter seeds for poppies, sweet peas, asters or other annuals.

 

You can achieve a border even in limited or obstructed space. Some garden annuals thrive along a fence as long as it does not shut off too much sunlight. These varieties include marigolds, zinnia and amaranths. You need to spade the ground as much as you can and add a bit of quick-acting fertilizer.

To start a flower bed, the ground must be well-drained. The subsoil should be deep and the ground fertile. The bed should be mulched in the fall and spaded under in the springtime. Flower beds should be broad so that the roots of the grass growing on either side do not meet beneath the flowers, leeching moisture and food from them. Fertilizer can be added in the spring.

 

The best effects come from plants set close enough to cover the ground with a selection that provides continuous blooms. Plants can be massed to achieve an intended effect, such as a strong display of blue or red or even ribbon-like lines and edgings of harmoniously contrasting colors. Beds can also emphasize features of a particular flow such as tulips or chrysanthemums.

Bedding is often temporary, as the bed is filled with different plants every year. However, some beds can be permanent in order to give off a continuous display of form or color. Permanent bedding is best achieved with hardy ornamental grasses such as eulalias and arundo.

 

Summer bedding consists of perennial plants carried over from the previous year. They can also be grown for this reason in February or March. These plants include geraniums and heliotrope.

 

True spring bedding, most often tulips, hyacinths and crocuses, is temporary. The bed is typically occupied by other plants later in the season, most often annuals. The later plant's seeds are commonly spread among the perennial bulbs in early spring.

An aquatic flower garden provides interesting variety. Some of the most ornamental plants of all grow in water and wetlands. A pond is essential. Tubs and half-barrels can sustain water lilies for a time, but they don't provide enough room or food.

 

In cement ponds, the roots of water lilies should be planted in shallow boxes of earth (about one foot deep and three or four feet square). In other ponds, hardy varieties of water lilies can be planted after the pond is clear of frost. More tender varieties can be planted at the same time as geraniums. The roots should be sunk into mud and weighted down with a stone or dirt clod.

 

The Egyptian lotus can be transplanted when growth begins to show in the roots. The roots should be cleaned and dead parts removed before burying them in three inches of soil. You should be careful that the roots do not freeze.

 

Wild marsh and pond plants make excellent marginal plantings. Look for sedges, cat-tail, sweet flag and marsh grasses. Japanese iris produces an excellent effect. Summer plants include caladium and papyrus.

 

 

Bailey, L.H. (2005). Project Gutenberg eBook of Manual of Gardening (Second Edition). Retrieved March 6, 2008, from the Project Gutenberg Web Site: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8mgrd10h.htm.