An integral component of the design of any suburban area are plant and flower compositions. Favorite by many gardeners, annual flowers transform the site, making it more elegant and festive. Having a short growing season, annuals delight with variegated flowering already in the first year of planting. But to get a magnificent landscape that will delight the eye throughout the season, you need to choose the right annual flowers for the flower bed.
When choosing flowering annuals for decorating a summer cottage, you should first of all focus on the height of the plants and the intended place of their placement. The most popular in the arrangement of suburban areas are: mixborders, modular flower beds and flower beds.
When creating a mixborder, each subsequent row of plants is filled with taller varieties so that the composition is clearly visible from the front side and retains its decorative effect throughout the season. A selection of plants looks very aesthetically pleasing when a low-growing lobelia or geranium is planted in the foreground, the central plan is filled with medium-sized plants – ornamental sage, verbena or zinnia, and tall cosmea or amaranth are placed in the background.
Mixborders are multi-row plant compositions in the form of an elongated ribbon, formed from plants that have different heights and flowering periods
Modular flower beds are flower arrangements formed and decorated with several varieties of plants planted in containers.
Perfect for planting in containers: celosia, begonia, heliotrope, petunia, nasturtium, geranium
The characteristic features of the flower bed are the clear form of the composition with the placement of plants in the same plane, or with small smooth differences. An effective decoration of flower beds can be: snapdragon, lavater, aster. More often, such compositions are made up, after working out the scheme for planting a flower bed of annuals, giving it a geometric shape and making a closed loop. In the flower beds, strict lines and clarity of the pattern are well traced.
In summer cottages, a variant of a natural flower bed is most often found, the plants on which bloom at different times, replacing each other
All beautiful annuals for a flower bed have their own flowering time: some of them delight with flowering in the spring months, others reveal their variegated hats under the sunny summer rays, and others complete the flowering parade only with the onset of autumn cold weather.
The latter includes eustoma. You can learn more about this plant from the material:
Among spring flowering annuals, they are distinguished by the greatest decorativeness: pelargonium, pansies, forget-me-nots, petunia
To obtain early flowering of delicate openwork flowers, the seeds of the aforementioned plants are planted in cups with fertile soil even in winter, gradually growing to full-fledged seedlings.
The bulk of annual plants bloom in the first half of summer. The choice of annual flowers for a flower bed is limited only by the taste preferences of the gardener regarding the height, color and duration of flowering of the vending specimen.
Motley “suns” of gazania, delicate flowers of nemophila, “lights” of balsam will turn the flower garden into a variegated palette of colors
To emphasize the riot of colors and the exquisite beauty of flowers, decorative leafy annuals should also be used when composing compositions.
As a background for handsome flowers, the following are perfect: seaside cineraria, golden pyrethrum, crested chlorophytum, hybrid coleus
It is important to remember that when choosing and planting plants, you need to take into account the conditions for their cultivation. The bulk of annuals, although they tolerate slight shading, are most decorative only in well-lit areas.
Until the last sunny days, the flower garden will be decorated with fluffy ageratum brushes, orange marigold caps, variegated marigold inflorescences and delicate small lobelia flowers
Good in the autumn flowerbed and dendrantems, asters, autumn chrysanthemums, as well as annual ornamental grasses: pinnacle and feather grass.
It goes well with colorful annuals and ornamental cabbage, the heads of which are crowned with chic purple-green “crowns”
Related article: Ornamental cabbage as a design element for a country flower bed
Even the most ordinary round flowerbed of annuals can transform into a colorful carpet woven from hundreds of bright and fragrant flowers, if you focus on the color combination of components when composing a composition. Already at the stage of drawing up a flower garden scheme, you need to decide what will be the “highlight” of the composition: in bright contrasts or the nobility of a one-color flower bed. So, flower beds decorated in blue, blue, green and purple tones will have a pacifying effect.
For arranging flower beds in blue-violet tones, the following are perfect: blue cornflower, Mexican ageratum, plantain bruise, tricolor bindweed
Flower beds decorated in yellow, red and orange shades will attract attention and tune in to a major mood. Variegated flowers, thanks to their bright and cheerful shades, will energize.
They will fill the flower garden with juicy colors of yellow shades: bracts beetle, orange dimorphote and beautiful Gaillardia
Bright strokes in red tones will bring: large-flowered godetia, umbrella calendrinia, salvia and cosmea
When composing compositions, contrasting combinations look most advantageous:
- Blue with orange (or red);
- Yellow with red (or purple);
- Red with green.
You can smooth out contrasts in the flower arrangement by adding plants with white flowers.
Decorated with exquisite white flowers: Iberis umbrella, winged ammobium, hybrid small petals and fragrant dope
Miniature annuals, creeping on the ground with a carpet and towering on small legs, evoke affection and admiration. Plants, the height of which does not exceed 30 cm, are good for decorating both small mini-flowers and for arranging multi-level compositions. With their help, they successfully decorate the voids at the base of the bushes in mixborders.
Among the most unpretentious undersized annuals are: purslane, daisies, seaside cineraria
Low-growing forget-me-nots, phloxes, lobelias, marigolds, dwarf viola are famous for no less decorativeness.
Medium-sized beauties, reaching a height of 80 cm, form the basis of mixed flower beds and ridges. Among the vast range of annuals, striking the imagination with a variety of colors and shapes, even the most discerning gardener will be able to choose an interesting sample.
Due to their amazing beauty, medium-sized ones are extremely popular among gardeners: Mattiola, Esholzia, Gaillardia and Lantana.
Tall annuals with a height of more than one and a half meters are good both in group planting and in solitary planting. Most often they are planted as a spectacular background when arranging multi-level mixborders. They are used to decorate the unattractive walls of outbuildings and solid fences.
It is difficult to take your eyes off the chic terry stock-rose or the elegant pyramids of the delphinium, strewn with several dozen flowers
The star-shaped castor-bean leaves, snow-white paniculate inflorescences of aruncus and openwork “bells” of datura also look original.
Annuals are versatile plants for landscaping. In just one season, they transform the most dull corners of the garden into festive lounges.
