#RSS Feed for Gardening Advice articles - Telegraph.co.uk DCSIMG Accessibility links * Skip to article * Skip to navigation [telegraph_print_190.gif] Advertisement Advertisement Wednesday 15 December 2010 Telegraph.co.uk ___________________ Submit * Home * News * Sport * Finance * Lifestyle * Comment * Travel * Culture * Technology * Fashion * Jobs * Dating * Offers * Motoring * Health * Property * Gardening * Food and Drink * Family * Outdoors * Relationships * Expat * Announcements * Puzzles * Garden Shop * Gardening Advice * Helen Yemm * How to Grow * Gardens to Visit * Beekeeping * Gardening Video Gardening Advice Plan beautiful borders for your garden Borders that look good all year round are an art form, but once you have planned and planted your design, it will look after itself with only a little maintenance. Herbaceous borden at the Inner Temple garden, London - Plan beautiful borders for your garden Herbaceous borden at the Inner Temple garden, London Photo: CHRISTINE BOYD By Mary Keen 11:44AM BST 15 Sep 2010 Comments Clients ask for borders with no bare earth. Ever. At Westonbirt in the Italian Garden, which I wrote about recently, the bare winter parterres were once planted in a pattern of holly leaves stuck into the soil. We have not resorted to that yet (although it sounds interesting). Planning for all year tends to mean plenty of serviceable shrubs, rather than the changing washes of colour most of us like. But as designers, we are trying to develop a more interesting formula. We tell customers that November and December will be respectable, but not exciting. There will be pools of greenery, but they have to accept some brown earth. Related Articles * Rainwater can help with dry seasons 15 Sep 2010 * Gardening week ahead: Potato scab and cooking problems 15 Sep 2010 * Gardening calendar - September 2010 13 Sep 2010 * Late summer picking and planting of veg 11 Sep 2010 * Plan stakes and support for your plants 09 Sep 2010 * Take clematis cuttings 10 Sep 2010 For the hardliners we choose 60 to 70 per cent evergreens. In my garden it is more like 25 per cent. Evergreens don't have to be shrubby and static. First choices for all-year performance are Helleborus argutifolius with interesting leaves and apple-green flowers from February to May. H. foetidus is reliable, too, and better for shade but, as its name suggests, not totally desirable. There is a scented form, 'Miss Jekyll', which I have never managed to find. The lime green bottlebrushes of Euphorbia wulfenii, against bluey green leaves are another failsafe choice, with a long spring season and beautiful leaves all year. It is worth insisting on 'Lambrook Gold' or 'John Tomlinson'. Grasses are good if the weather is not too mushy, but uninvasive Elymus magellanicus is useful in drier places. This electric blue grass will keep its colour in mild winters. Shapes are important. Iris pallida subsp. pallida is the only iris that keeps its sword-shaped leaves intact until the frosts. Yuccas are another architectural feature. Yucca gloriosa will not flower as reliably as Y. filamentosa or Y. flaccida, but its leaves are better in winter. Bergenias are a contrast and make good front-row plants. For an evergreen background, we often use Phillyrea latifolia, sometimes called the green olive. It will grow into a tree, but it can be pruned to make billows or balls. Osmanthus x burkwoodii is obliging anywhere and has scented flowers in spring. For shade, the Sarcococcas are invaluable and their scent any time after Christmas is heavenly. Skimmia 'Kew Green' is another favourite for shade on neutral soils. I hesitate to recommend box because it is so susceptible to disease, but the silver-edged Buxus sempervirens 'Elegantissima' is hard to resist if you want something to lighten heavy greens. Here, even in cold winters, Buddleja 'Nanho Blue' keeps its silvery leaves all year. I prune this buddleia in two stages, after flowering and then again in April, rather than the total February chop usually recommended. At the edge of a bed, dianthus have silvery hummocks all winter. The larger forms like 'Laced Monarch' or 'Haytor' can look substantial. Early in the year, snowdrops (try 'S Arnott' and 'Galatea') and crocus appear in the gaps so their needle leaves provide some green before their flowers show. Crocus and scillas add pools of early blue, and Cyclamen coum with shocking pink flowers will be happy under shrubs. Where there is room, tulips can follow, but we always leave space for long-flowering perennials. Geranium 'Rozanne' with blue flowers all summer and the white Japanese anemone 'Honorine Jobert' are hard to beat. In shade, white or apricot foxgloves will appear between shrubs and we do use half-hardies or annuals for more summer colour. Nicotiana suaveolens, Salvia 'Blue Enigma' or 'Mulberry Jam' and dahlias are useful. It is inevitable that some bulbs will be dug up when the tender plants go in. As shrubs mature and clients begin to see the excitement of a garden that changes with the seasons, there will be scope for reducing the quota of evergreens and adding the more ephemeral and rarer perennials. Telegraph Garden Centre: Top 5 Garden Products X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! 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