Would you like people to come into your
garden and go 'wow' when they see your borders? And do you
think that herbaceous borders like these belong in grand country houses
where there are teams of professional gardeners and a big budget for plants?
This is Paul and Frances Moskovits's garden and it's 125 feet long by 65 feet
wide - that's about 38 by 19 meters - and Frances propagates
most of the plants or grows them from seed herself ,and she's going to share
her tips with us on how to get this kind of border that
has an amazing wow factor. This isn't a low maintenance border, it's
a wow factor border and it's really important to recognize the difference
between the two. Frances doesn't have any horticultural
qualifications and the things that she does to look
after this border aren't difficult, but she does spend time and effort,
both thinking about it and doing things. i also talk quite often about finding
your own gardening style and this is a particular kind of
gardening style because if you love your garden,
and you love gardening, then giving a border
extra care and attention so that you could have a real wow factor
is often very worthwhile. I don't think i could ever achieve the levels of
perfection seen in this border but actually i've learned a lot from
Frances's tips and I hope you will too. She and Paul run the local garden club,
which is called the Painters Forstall Gardening club
and they also open their garden twice a year for the National Garden Scheme and
they visit other gardens, and I'll put links for all those
in the description below. So Frances, how have you created this border?
Well, it's been years of sort of getting things together in my head,
and I really wanted a beautiful mixed border,
so it literally has taken years of practice with lots of propagation,
trying out different plants and probably most importantly
getting a lot of inspiration from other gardens - my
main inspiration has been Great Dixter. I absolutely love it and when we get
chance we we will try and nip along there once
or twice a year, and then we come home and we're just inspired, so that really has been the inspiration and
for the last two or three years - maybe three or four years actually - we've sort
of had the border more or less as we like it. It takes a lot of time,
a lot of patience and a lot of manure! That's the most
important thing - compost of all types, so a nice mix of compost, a
lovely range of plants and I love to mix the herbaceous perennials.
It's actually quite easy now because the herbaceous perennials
obviously die away and then magically reappear
usually just after the spring bulbs - because we have a few spring bulbs in
in the border - and then we clear away all the detritus that's
no longer really going to help the border and
start to think about how the perennials are coming along.
Then I usually have done plenty of propagating, I start to propagate things
now for next year, and then lots of sowing of
seeds, annuals, biennials obviously, and then mix
in whatever I've got into the border and usually plenty of it. For me the secret is to put plenty of plants in
the border so there's no weeding. Could you just run through
how you do the compost? We get a mix of compost. We have a
friendly farmer where we get some really lovely old
well-rotted cow manure from an old cow yard,
which takes a bit of work because it's out on the marsh, and we have to drive
out there and take all our bags and we fill it up and do several trips. And we buy organic horse manure that's usually been steam treated,
so there are a few weeds in it and then mushroom compost and any old
pots of compost go on there, so that will help to keep the moisture in in the
summer. Basically we add anything we can get our
hands on and plenty of it. So how much compost do you
put on the borders? A foot or even two feet thick - literally - so if i
get a bag a very very heavy bag of our own
collected compost (also we have our own compost heap here
and mix that in) - if we get a bag of really well rotted
steam treated horse compost or anything like that then one of those
heavy really heavy bags will go on just one phlox plant
and I don't spread it out - it goes on in a lump
on top of it, before it starts to come through the ground
in the autumn. I'll try and add compost as well as in the spring. During the winter
the birds will actually
flatten it out, take all the bits out, enjoy themselves on the food
and the worms will do the rest. And the thing is - there are great big
lumps of compost probably in there still, but you can't see them because it's
actually covered in plants, so I think the thing to do is to be really
heavy-handed with any organic material that you can get
for the garden- any type of compost that suits your garden,
and with this one we have a mix because that way I'm covering all bases - and
plenty of it. Don't skimp, don't think you have to put an inch or a six inch
layer on, layer on even a foot if you can, two feet - if you
can get two two feet of compost on there, shovel it on, and the other thing
is we don't do any digging. We can't
possibly even begin to dig there. We wouldn't dig this bed, we have a sort of
no dig technique and we've just
had to do it because you can't find any space in there to dig, so the
worms do the digging for us. If you put enough compost on, it's really
lovely, very well rotted - you can even buy organic compost in bags
if you haven't got your own compost heap.
If you can get anything, put it on and don't spread it
out, don't be alarmed and then during the winter the
bugs will be doing the work for you. In autumn
I put plenty of compost on, really loading it up and again in the spring,
and the thing is that very possibly by the time you get to the spring,
you're not quite sure because the compost would have been probably
morphed into the soil - sometimes you're not quite sure where you've put it,
literally, but don't worry about that just put more
on! That's the secret! And how do you plant up the borders? I would say always try and put more than one of your plants in together,
for instance, this year we've had bergamot (Monarda),
which has been in the border now for about two or three years,
and I'm never too sure whether or not it's going to come through the winter. I
mean it always has but some people say it's a
short-lived plant. It hasn't been short lived here yet, touch wood,
so I always try and do plenty of cuttings, just in case and then in
the spring - late spring - I will plant two or three
more plants near to the bergamot that i'm hoping is going
to pop up, so in fact you end up with lots. This year we've ended up with quite a
bit, and I love that. So I would say make sure you put plenty of
of plants in If you have verbascums, put a couple
fairly close to each other - you know the perennial
verbascums can get quite grand, but don't put that put you off because they flower
forever and you can deadhead them and they keep flowering.
So you don't space plants out the way they advise on the labels? If it says
needs to be 12 inches apart, you wouldn't necessarily take any notice of
that? No, I don't have the spaces that they say
on labels - i just make my own labels up and i just put in whatever I can
wherever I can, and don't be frightened because you can
always cut them back if they start to get a
little bit thuggish. You know, they're still going to be
beautiful but if they get too big they may not be taking over the garden, but they
may unbalance the border in the colour scheme, so
then you can always just chop them down a bit, then the other things will grow
over them and then they'll come up later on a bit -
like a Chelsea chop, but not quite a Chelsea chop - you can sort of play with
the border, it's a bit like a musical instrument,
you can actually play with it, and and it moves -
a very easy way of getting lots of color in the garden is to put lots
in and if it starts to look a bit unbalanced,
just cut them underneath. Everything else will crowd in over it and then
the plants you chopped back may come up later on And then what's the next stage after
that? Staking - staking is very important. I've learned
from experience, over many years - finally the penny
dropped - that you really do need to stake things as early as you can,
so some of our stakes actually stay in over the winter,
because it's very difficult if I miss a moment in the spring when
you need to put your staking in, you may actually damage one
of the plants underground if you do it too late, so some of them stay in. i use any
stakes I can get my hands on - really, really good wrought iron types which I
was fortunate to buy - we were fortunate to buy - years ago and
they will go on forever and they morph in - because they're sort of
rusty they morph in, and they're very very strong.
i wouldn't go and buy thin wire stakes because they bend.
Also a very friendly head gardener from a garden not that far from here at
Belmont - Graham said to go with hazel staking, so we've
done some of that this year for the first time.
Put loads of stakes in - we usually
have so many stakes, you wouldn't believe it - but it's never enough!
This year it's been particularly windy and
i've had to sort of come up with a few inventions - lastminute.com sort of thing -
with hazel, but thank goodness i did put enough in
otherwise it would have been flattened a few weeks ago.
So have you got any other tips for anyone wanting
a full beautiful border like this? If you want your long border
to really last, you should start deadheading as soon as you can
and deadhead the smallest flowers. If you can deadhead and be really
patient - I deadhead really as soon as they start looking floppy, I
mean I've been deadheading now, we're only in July and i've probably been
deadheading for at least a month. Some of our my plants here
have been planted fairly early because we were open for the National Garden Scheme last weekend
so i had to really think about aiming for that particular date for everything to be
just right and that meant getting things in quite
early, taking a slight chance with some of the plants
with late frost - but as I grow and propagate most of most of our own plants, I had plenty in reserve. So yes, youmust deadhead and also although
the plants get plenty of feed from the soil - the soil's been enriched with all the
compost that you put on in the winter and in the spring - I also do feed once or
twice a week, just certain plants, like the salvia 'Black & Blue' and the
bergamots with organic seaweed liquid organic
seaweed just to give them a bit of a boost
just a half feed half strength but that at least once a week
i decide on the extra boost with an extra feed just but because i
deadhead regularly two or three times a day and
i look i look at them and i just know you will know when your plants are
looking slightly in need of something a little
bit extra because they they may just be struggling to put out
another just another flower but if you study them and you love your
plants you'll know when they need a little bit extra and if you're not too
sure then it's always best to give them a
weak solution of feed best to under feed than overfeed
and then if they take to that quite kindly then you could give them another
half strength feed in two or three days time
and then you'll see them pop up again or just look better they look more
vibrant something about them you just recognize
if you want a really full long border try not to worry too much about colour
scheme if you live in a stately home and you
had a lots of lovely spaces in the garden then you can afford
to do that i mean i used to try and do that but
actually if you want a spectacularly beautiful border which is going to give
you that wow factor then don't worry too much about your
color scheme just put it in it was lovely being in the national
garden scheme because people were so complementary and i think
genuinely so because it was such a whale factor when they came around the corner
and it's because it's everything you've got to put in everything
if you actually spread your color scheme out just shove everything in that you
can basically you've got healthy plants that are being
well fed well looked after then actually you'll
have flowers and color for a long time and then things will just gently just
gently take over from another plant how do you manage watering in a very
full border like this when you have a dry summer or any of our
summers here in the southeast another really very very good tip is if
you know it's going to rain water your border beforehand and i
i select plants in the border that need watering i know when they need a bit of
extra water so i have a lovely long wand on the end
of my hose which will reach certain plants so i don't have to water the
whole border i'll just water certain plants make sure
they have plenty and then they're much happier and i'd
like to water early in the morning and also again in the evening if they
look like they need a bit of a top up and the other thing is if it's if it has
rained water the plants again don't think that
if your border has had a good dose of rain even three or four
millimeters even more than that we've had up to 10
millimeters water it again because then they will
really love you they like a bit of water before and a
bit of water afterwards you can't go wrong
i'm just going to remind everyone at this point that if you live in a wetter
or more rainy part of the world you'll have to adapt your watering
strategy accordingly but the general point is a really
interesting one which is that if you have a very full border that
does mean it requires more water and particularly some individual plants
may require even more water than others so it's something to bear in mind if you
want this kind of a border because i know many gardeners say that
if a plant needs extra watering after its first couple of years
then it's not the right plant for their garden and
that is one gardening style but this is a different gardening style
and this is a gardening style that goes for one full wow factor border
and that is going to require some extra watering at least of individual plants
so have you got any more other tips i spend a lot of time doing plants
and trying to make the border look lovely
but if you have a lawn the most important thing is that this border
wouldn't look anything if this lawn wasn't looking
good and that is absolutely true we've had
years when the border has looked like this and we
lawn hasn't looked as good as it does today
the border still looks lovely but it doesn't look spectacular
and that's a thing so if you have a lawn look after it
make it green keep your edges really sharp unless you
particularly want them just to drift over but it makes it makes life
difficult for mowing uh but if you have that nice
edges nice little bit of soil showing every
now and again a green lawn then your border will look
good this border looks as good as this from
about may to october with constantly changing flowers
and there are bulbs in it in spring francis says there is one thing
worth knowing which is that it doesn't look brilliant in the depths of winter
in early winter you've got seed heads and things like that and those do look
good but being realistic those do gently
collapse over the winter i've now realized that i could do a lot
more with feeding my garden i'd had some idea that i could overfeed
my plants but i'm going to pile on lots more manure
and i'm certainly going to try lots more deadheading and lots more staking
so if you'd like more tips ideas and inspiration for your garden
then do subscribe to the middlesized garden youtube channel and thank you for
watching goodbye
