Soil Preparation

Good soil preparation is essential with her­baceous borders, and for areas to be devoted in mixed borders to hardy perennial plants, as it is likely to be several years before the plants are lifted and divided. Therefore the opportunity should be taken to incorporate as much organic matter into the soil as possible during the preparation. Well-rot­ted garden compost, strawy manure and leaf mould are all excellent soil conditioners and help maintain moisture without waterlog­ging. Perennial weeds should be eliminated from any area to be given over to herbaceous plants. Couch grass, creeping thistle and other common pernicious weeds can cause endless trouble once established amongst border plants. Their creeping rootstocks become entangled in the fibrous roots of the desirable plant and create a reservoir of problems for the future. Only when estab­lished herbaceous plants are lifted and divided can these be removed successfully.

Handpicking of perennial weeds is useful, but more certain results can be obtained by using a weedkiller containing glyphosate. This is a translocated weedkiller which is absorbed by the foliage of the weed and then transmitted throughout the sap stream, kill­ing the plant entirely but not polluting the soil. Early spring is the ideal time to make an application, just as the plants are begin­ning to shoot, for the chemical is more readily absorbed and translocated at this time. Spraying in spring usually catches any pieces of root missed during handpicking as these will also be producing small shoots.

There is not a lot of difference between planting a new border and refurbishing an existing one. An existing border will doubt­less contain a number of plants that resent disturbance, or in the mixed border there will doubtless be shrubs that must be worked around. Some herbaceous subjects resent disturbance so much that they sulk and refuse to flower for several years after being moved plants like paeony and Christmas rose as well as any members of the pea family, such as Russell lupins. These must all remain where they are, unless they are exhausted, when plants like lupins can be increased by cuttings of young shoots taken as they emerge from the crown in early spring.

Once soil preparation is completed, the areas which various groups of plants are going to occupy can be marked out with sand. It is useful to have an idea of where you are going to put each plant variety and I find a rough sketch on paper a useful guide. Do not be hide-bound by your original ideas as these were in all probability made at the kitchen table and imagination and reality do not always tie up. Use the sketch as a basis upon which to work. Do not be so dogmatic that you have no flexibility. As long as certain basic principles are adhered to there is little that can go wrong in the planning of a mixed or herbaceous border. The arrange­ment of colour and Contrast is purely per­sonal, so are shapes and heights, and their combinations. What is not flexible is the quantity of plants necessary to create a satis­factory effect. Single plants do not create an attractive picture, nor in a cottage garden context do square, circular or oblong blocks of plants. Do what you wish about colours and contrasts, but stick to groups of five, seven or nine plants and arrange them in an irregular fashion.