johnleh

Help! How to anchor the back of a small corner perennial flower bed?

johnleh
4 years ago

Hi all


Please can any garden designers - professional or budding amateur! - offer suggestions for a taller corner plant to anchor the triangular bed (right of photo) in a small back garden that gets decent sun.


I’m planting it up for friends and that bed, plus the border that extends down from it, will have a naturalistic feel. Think some or all of Astrantias, Rudbeckias, Heleniums, umbellifers (probably Baltic Parsley) drifting through Stipa tenuissima grasses with Verbena bonariensis above. Plus Alliums.


So there’ll be colour from spring to autumn, but I’m struggling with a taller anchor plant for the corner. It needs to provide interest for as much of that period as possible, and have a small footprint. It can’t be a big shrub, or a small tree. A grass would be great, but Miscanthus emerges too late. A sole Calamagrostis Karl Foerster? I’m worried it will look lumpen without one added either side, which might look clunky. Molinias: love ’em, but some say they need moisture. Panicums: too short?


The alternative may be a tall, slim perennial with foliage interest when it isn’t flowering. But apart from Thalictrums (some experience of those) I’m struggling. Or perhaps a climber is the answer?


This garden design malarky isn’t easy, is it?! Any suggestions gratefully received.


Many thanks, Johnny




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Ireland
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