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Perennial flower beds can be considered as a basic component of a well-planned landscape design. They not only complement any garden, but are also easy to maintain. With perennial flower bed plans, you are not required to replace plants frequently, which is so in case of growing annuals and biennials. Once a perennial garden is established, you can follow simple maintenance tips to preserve the aesthetic value of the garden.
The color and flower type of perennial plants are plentiful; you can select specific varieties as per your flower garden theme. As we already know, the blooming period of perennial plants are short, usually 4 – 6 weeks. A properly planned perennial garden will give you the advantage of enjoying vibrant flowers throughout the year. While designing garden flower beds of a perennial type, make sure that you plan properly regarding the theme, beds and plant variety.
Perennial Garden: Designs for Flower Beds
Though perennial flowers can be grown randomly, plantation in beds gives a special visual impact. When viewed at a glance, vibrant colored flowers appear more beautiful when they bloom in groups, rather than in singles. Anytime, a perennial garden bed with full bloomed flowers is appreciated by every viewer. You can practice basic landscaping ideas for flower beds while designing a perennial garden. Following are some basic tips on perennial flower beds and designs for garden flower beds.
Perennial Garden Theme: First of all, select the theme of the perennial garden. You can opt for a formal type, scented type (roses and lavender), butterfly garden (salvia and buddleia), water garden or any other theme as your choice. If you are a beginner, it is always better to choose a manageable and attractive perennial garden type. Once you gain knowledge about the maintenance tips regarding various themes, you can go for more complex garden types.
Perennial Flower Bed Plan: Lay out the plan of the perennial flower beds according to the area of the yard. A wider bed gives more flexibility for designing the flower beds. Also, narrow flower beds give a crowded appearance. Nevertheless, too wide garden beds may be difficult to manage, as you will not be able to reach the middle plants. An 8 – 10 feet wide bed is a preferable dimension for perennial flower beds.
Selecting Perennial Flower: Selecting the plant variety is the most crucial step for designing a perennial flower garden. A basic tip is to select plants according to their required growing conditions (soil, light, water, temperature) so that they grow best in your garden. Another important aspect for selecting plant variety is the height, flower color, length of blooming and flowering time.
Creating Color Scheme: You can sort out the plants according to the height, flower color and blooming time prior to creating a color scheme. Also, make sure you consider the light requirements of the plants, while grouping perennial flowers. Speaking about the color scheme of the perennial flower bed, you can group perennial plants (of different colors) in odd numbers. A cluster of three perennial plants with various colors looks appealing. Warm flower colors include yellow, orange and red together; while cool colors are white, pink, purple and blue.
Plantation Pattern: While growing the perennial plants, place the short varieties (dianthus and phlox) on the front and tall plants (peony and iris) at the back. You can include 14 – 18 inch tall flowers in the front section, 1 – 3 feet tall varieties in the middle portion and 3 – 5 feet perennial flowers at the back. Planting in this pattern will create a scenic beauty to your perennial flower beds.
Just now Oncidium splendidum is beginning to show color as its yellow flowers unfold in an upright spray a yard or more above the thick dark green leaves. Its blossoms also resemble butterflies but are larger than varicosum and the bright yellow blossoms are marked with chocolate brown spots.
Both species keep well as cut flowers and make beautiful corsage or graceful sprays for a vase. A doctor friend whom I advised to purchase plant of this for his solarium informed me recently that they are blooming the second year and doing well, so you see this is another which may be added to the “solarium list.”
Their culture is much the same as Cattleyas and require a period of rest after blooming and until no growth starts. A little liquid fertilizer once in two weeks during then growing period is beneficial. During the resting period do not water as often bu never allow the pseudo-bulbs to shrivel.
Calanthes are now in bloom and afford most graceful sprays in pure white (Harris variety) white with a dark pink throat (Wm. Murray), or regeieri which is similar, bright pink (veitchi) and one of the largest and most beautiful pink or carmine varieties, – Florence. They are all peculiar in blossoming after the pseudo-bulbs have shed their leaves, the blossom stem emerging from the base of the bulb.
The culture of Calanthes is not difficult if a few cardinal points are observed: After blooming the bulbs are allowed to become dry, are either left in the pots which are turned upon their sides or are removed and stored in dry sand or peat in a warm room. About April 1st new growth will start from the base of the bulb and they should then be potted up at once.
Potting material consists of good potting soil, crushed pot shreds or common red brick broken into small pieces which is added in small amount, some sand if soil is heavy and about one-third the quantity of good well-rotted cow manure. A small amount of fine bone meal is also considered beneficial. Three- or four-inch pots for the medium sized bulbs and five-inch for the larger are usually adequate. The bulbs are only inserted into the potting material about a half inch or just deep enough to keep them upright. Little water is given until roots appear and from then on until the leaves turn yellow in the fall they should be given ample moisture and a warm house.
A temperature of about 70 degrees at night is best and as their growing period is during the summer, this is not difficult. They should be shaded from bright sunshine. Bulbs can he purchased from about $2.00 up, according to variety. Orchid plants are naturally long lived and most of them can be readily increased by division so that with care one may gradually increase his stock from his own plants. The Calanthes, just mentioned increase quite rapidly by the production of new bulbs and the old bulbs are planted the second year to increase the stock.
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