A New Style of Border

Over the years, the very ornamental herbaceous border drifted away from the functional cottage-garden-style borders, where edibles like fruit, herbs and vegetables were mixed with garden flowers in no particular order. It became instead a symbol of prestige in English country gardens, and was designed and planted up by master gardeners flaunting their ultimate gardening skill in creating masterpieces of shapes, colours and textures on a large scale.

- By Anna Celliers

What is a herbaceous border?

A herbaceous border is a collection of perennial herbaceous plants arranged closely together.'Herbaceous' means that the plants have non-woody stems and take less than one year to reach their full height and produce flowers and seed before dying back over winter to have a repeat performance in the following spring.

The perennial, on the other hand (and this includes all plant types, woody or not), might be deciduous or evergreen, but will live for more than two years without going fully dormant.

The classic herbaceous border is:

Wide and deep, in order to accommodate a variety of foliage and flower colours, which are planted in bold groups and layers from low to intermediate to high.

Very long, in order to allow for repeat plantings of the same plants in order to prevent the 'fruit salad' look in a border and to add depth.

High maintenance and expensive to keep in prime condition from spring to late autumn - especially if annuals have to be added all the time to maintain the colourful effect. This requires a great deal of planning and knowhow, too.

A complete joy to the eye in three seasons, but mostly dormant and bare through winter.

There is an alternative...

Take heart if you wish to break free from the reign of British garden design styles or don't own a huge country estate (at best a suburban garden), because there is a different approach: