Book or content recommendations for bedding design?

Gaughan.david

Hi everyone,

I've spent the past 2 months of evenings landscaping my small garden in Scotland, and I've finally got it to a position where it can be planted up come Spring. 

I have around 12m of 1.5m deep borders to plant up, and am considering a mix of wildlife/cottage garden styles. (There's a little island in the middle of the lawn that will be planted up as a japanese-style rock garden, but that's much easier to put together!)

I'm pretty new to the whole gardening game, and am currently completely overwhelmed by the endless choice of plants available. Does anyone know of a resource for bedding planning? What and how many of which to put next to what else, and when to plant it all? It'd be really great to see actual planned bed designs. Happy to buy books etc!

It doesn't help that I'm VERY colourblind!

philippa smith2

Perhaps a photo and some idea of orientation and soil type would help people offer some advice ?  Also whether you have some plants particularly in mind that you would like.
Are you only after bedding plants or requiring something for a bit of structure ?
Not sure whether the likes of the RHS site may provide suggestions ?

AnniD

This may be an "oldie but goodie", l found it useful years ago !
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bedding-Plant-Expert-Dr-Hessayon/dp/0903505452

WillDB

You sound as if you are actually thinking about perennial borders, rather than what most of us think of as 'bedding'.

Don't worry about colour, one good bit of advice I've seen is to design the border so it would work in a black and white photo - i.e. pay more attention to structure and texture than colour. I think it was Noel Kingsbury who said that. His book on border design would be a good jumping off point, you can't go wrong for £3.82: Designing Borders

This is a really cracking book if you want to get into naturalistic planting. It's perhaps more aimed at public spaces, but it's very in depth and helpful in terms of understanding how different sorts of plants grow: Planting: A New Perspective

AnniD

Good point there @WillDB , must admit l looked at the thread title and thought that's what the OP meant. My fault for not reading it properly 

punkdoc

If you look at the various picture threads on this site, that might help you.
My main bit of advice would be, don't expect to get it right first time, plants can be moved. Every year I decide I don't like some aspects of some of the borders and move plants about.