Borders and hedges for a garden from medicinal herbs

Send

Charming boxwood borders, beautiful flowering edges and expressive lush cereal ribbons ... For flower beds they have long distinguished their own, special types of hedges. But a strict plant frame is needed not only for decorative ensembles, but also for the garden. Especially if the garden is decorated in a regular style and requires strict accents even on the beds. Clinker, fencing, wicker boring and uncomfortable. But the planting frames around the beds look strictly and very organically. And the best candidates for creating a fence in the garden are spicy herbs.

Low, but very expressive borders that can surround any decorative composition, belong to hedges along with high green walls and lush flowering rows of shrubs of landscape fences. Their miniature size does not change the nature and purpose. Low fences for flower beds and flower beds are most often associated with boxwood borders, but options are not limited to this shrub.

Borders can be created from decorative foliage, and from flowering herbaceous perennials, and even from colorful annuals. Inimitable shrubby cinquefoil, touching wormwood and cuffs, hosts and geraniums, stonecrops and perennial asters - there are a lot of options. And even more expand the possibilities of spicy herbs. Fragrant, hardy, persistent and well suited to cutting, they like to grow in crowded conditions and surprise not only with a palette of smells, but also with textures.

It is spicy herbs that are the best option for hedges in the garden. The idea was born to frame regular-style beds with vegetable ribbons, but this trend has long gone beyond just strict gardens. Today, the garden fenced with cheerful borders has become one of the interesting design options in modern trends, and in country, and in bright national styles. And the transition from the traditional approach to maintaining a garden economy to a decorative mix design, the introduction of flower beds and the increasingly widespread use of decorative crops by no less fruitful gardens made the curbs an integral part of the garden fashion.

The advantages of spicy herbs over other plants in the garden are quite enough:

they are hardy and unpretentious;
spicy herbs are able to be content with minimal care;
plants are perfectly combined with all kinds of vegetables and traditional inhabitants of beds, look organically and harmoniously in a garden;
herbs can, without special extravagance, add color and texture to the design of the garden;
spicy perennials create a dense but well-controlled hedge;
all herbs are edible and you can’t be afraid of accidentally picking a leaf from the hedge along with the main crops;
plants serve as an additional source of raw materials for medicinal and tea collections;
many herbs can repel insect pests and protect vegetables and herbs from invading slugs.

From herbs, you get the perfect height border for the garden - low, but solid and dense. Height can be easily controlled by cutting, and the thickness of the border, its width and density, as well.

And the main thing is to create such a hedge in miniature is very easy. For this, it is enough just to choose the right density and not forget about the formation.

To create a border of herbs, you must:

Make a trench around the beds for planting plants. If necessary, improve the soil with organic fertilizers and add sand or drainage material to the bottom.
Seedlings of perennial spicy herbs should be positioned closer than the classic planting - after 12-20 cm, so that for every meter of the border length there should be at least 5 and no more than 8 seedlings.
Fill the landing trench with soil. Tamp lightly and carry out plentiful watering.
Mulch the surface of the soil under grass bark or other natural types of mulch.
In the period until the grass begins to actively develop, provide watering in a drought (it is better - regular procedures to maintain light soil moisture).

For the first haircut, you do not need to wait until the bushes are fully closed. As soon as the grasses grow and touch the branches of neighboring plants, they will turn out to be a rare, but ribbon, do the first pruning, limiting the height and stimulating thickening. In the first year, pruning can be done 2-3 times to accelerate growth. But in the future, such a border will need to be cut only if necessary or once a year - after flowering (in spring - for lavender), maintaining the height, shape and evenness of the “walls”.

To make the border faster and more solid and attractive, spend 2-3 dressings during the summer - at the beginning of flowering, in August - to prepare for the fall (potassium-phosphorus fertilizer). In the future, you can confine yourself to a single early spring fertilizing or mulching with organic matter, and only for more magnificent flowering can more nutrition be carried out.

If you use mineral fertilizers in the garden, you can carry out standard dressings for the curb or completely abandon them, focusing on how you are used to caring for vegetables and using the same types of fertilizers. Watering will be necessary for hedges only at a young age and only for the period of drought, but they will not damage the curb in any case.

5 favorites for borders and hedges around the beds

If you want to find plants that look great as a spicy border in the garden, then you should look for hardy, unpretentious, well-trimmed herbaceous perennials with semi-woody shoots. Haircut tolerance is a very important parameter. After all, only with the help of trimming it is possible to maintain both shape and attractiveness, and, most importantly, the density of such a hedge. Of course, a spicy ribbon can be created from parsley, chard, salads, basil, annual plants. But if you want to get a hedge with full functionality, which every year will only need to be corrected, and not recreated, then perennials are just your option.

Let's get to know better the best candidates for creating a beautiful border around the beds:

Narrow-leaved lavender (Lavandula angustifolia), known worldwide as English lavender - the only type of lavender that is grown in the middle lane in borders. The perennial shrub has long won the title of one of the best partners for flowering accents and a universal perennial, equally effective in hedges and flower beds. Numerous shoots with a height of just over half a meter create dense, dense, textured bushes and woody only below. The leaves are narrow, oppositely sessile, dense, small, silvery tone, give the whole plant a unique texture.

Inflorescences spikelets from whorls of 6-10 lip-shaped flowers, located at intervals of up to 2 cm, seem like a blue haze above the bushes and are in perfect harmony with the shoots. Lavender exudes a wonderful aroma, is easy to cut, offers a choice between classic and lower varieties and forms, the height of which is limited to 30-40 cm.Lavanda feels good on drained, light soils, requires only pruning in spring and watering, and propagates easily.

Sage Oak (Salvia nemorosa) Is a favorite among winter-hardy perennial sages, but a slightly more modest, but also more appropriate medicinal sage in the garden can cope with the task of creating a beautiful border. Moreover, unlike oak salvia, it is much better controlled and able to grow in strict rows. A charming plant with a unique texture of grayish-silver leaves attracts attention immediately. Semi-lignified, quite powerful shoots with a height of 25 to 50 cm form elegant shrubs.

Oval-lanceolate leaves with a velvety-wrinkled edge are very pleasant to the touch. And branched brushes or spikelets of inflorescences, consisting of complex whorls with pink-purple, medium-sized, spongy flowers, harmonize perfectly with greenery and add romantic tenderness to the plant. The conditions around the beds are perfect for sages who love water-permeable, loose and nutritious soils. If, after flowering, pruning is carried out and additional dressing is applied, sage will bloom no less powerfully by the fall. And it practically does not require leaving, it is easily controlled, makes strong pruning and offers a choice between differently colored varieties.

Tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus), we also know under the name tarragon - one of the most underrated representatives of herbs. If you give him free rein, he is able to create stunning beauty of thickets and curtains that look great throughout the active season and conquer with bright greenery and density. This is the most prone to self-sowing and uncontrolled spread of grass is easily controlled by simple cutting and preventing fruiting. Tarragon varieties offer a choice from medium-tall varieties about half a meter high to powerful meter and taller plants, but the height of the turf is easy to control.

Narrow lanceolate leaves are easily recognizable by their aroma and bright bright color. And flowering is surprisingly in harmony with densely leafy twigs, as if crowning the shoots hidden on the top between the leaves by small panicles of light green flowers. If flowering is allowed, it can cover the whole summer, but at the same time it is not a good idea for a border, because the attractiveness of greenery and the shape of the bushes will suffer from this.

Tarragon feels good in any soil except heavy, grows well on high beds, and caring for it comes down to pruning - it is better to carry it out several times a season. As soon as tarragon rises to a height of 30-40 cm, shoots with a height of about 15-20 cm are left, for thickening and effective framing with a dense frame.

Origanum common (Origanum vulgare) - a magnificent basic spice and a completely inimitable plant that retains its decorativeness in any season: even in winter, its dry inflorescences enliven the garden. Herbaceous perennials with semi-woody shoots are often called similar to thyme. But once you plant an oregano, you forget about all comparisons forever. Very fragrant round-oval leaves, densely branched shoots create bushes similar to pillows with a height of 30 to 50 cm.

The light edge makes the foliage velvety and further emphasizes the bright color of the greenery, which with a matte mass perfectly contrasts with other plants. Harmonize with herbs and inflorescences, literally raising the plant to a new level. Thyroid panicles with a reddish hue of peduncles and stipules and light whitish-lilac small flowers look like dried flowers, but not massive, but openwork and very elegant. Oregano becomes even thicker and more beautiful after trimming, is perfectly controlled. It can grow both in compact curtains and in arrays.

Modern varieties of oregano can boast different shades of leaf color, from variegated at "Variegata" to yellowish-green at "Aureum". And the color and height can be different: from 15-centimeter varieties for an alpine hill and compact 25-30-centimeter varieties for a low border to the classic, almost half-meter “ordinary” varieties. Oregano, in addition to pruning, oregano does not require and grows in almost any conditions.

Hyssop officinalis (Hyssopus officinalis) - a favorite plant by many, which even winter leaves green. Branched tetrahedral shoots resemble twigs. Shrubs up to 50 cm high are decorated with lanceolate, oppositely arranged leaves up to 4 cm long. The flowering of hyssop, during which peculiar spikelets rise above the curtains, seems original due to arched curved lines.

Inflorescences form whorls hidden in the axils of the upper leaves from spongy flowers of blue, blue, lilac, white or pink. Hyssop blooms from June until the beginning of autumn, creating a decorative border for a very long time that adorns the garden even after the cooling comes. Easily controlled by pruning, virtually no maintenance.

When choosing plants for borders in the garden, be sure to consider their frost resistance, durability and personal preferences. To create borders for plants in regions with harsh winters from plants that need shelter or are able to winter only under snow is impractical. The style of the garden and which cultures have already been used in its design are also important. After all, the border is the most catchy part of the beds, and it should go well with the rest of the design.