Garden Border Ideas: Beautiful Planting Ideas for the Garden

Love lies bleeding growing in a mixed border next to a path

Garden border ideas

Garden borders can be used in many different ways – from dividing an outdoor space into rooms, softening boundaries or making a front garden wildlife friendly. They can be curved or straight, huge herbaceous affairs or made up of a few select plants. The easiest way to make a border if you haven't created one before is to stick to a limited palette of plants and repeat a pattern, depending on how much space you have. Choose a strong colour scheme to keep your display looking cohesive, and make sure all the plants you pick will grow in the same conditions.

How to get started on your border

Use curved borders to create a more informal look

When designing a border, first decide what size the border will be. This will depend on the type of garden you have and the effect you want to create. In a small garden, you might want a curved border to make the space look bigger. In a long garden, you might want to avoid narrow borders to prevent your lawn from looking like a landing strip. Instead, break your garden up with the border going across the garden to act as a screen. This will help divide the garden up and create more interest as you walk through it. Once you've decided on a shape and size, try marking it out first before digging, to make sure it looks right. You could use a string line for a straight border or a hose for a curving one.

How to choose the right shape and depth of border

Think about the aspect

To ensure a beautiful planting scheme, the key to success is choosing the right plants for the aspect of your border. If your border is south-facing, choose plants that will thrive in the sun and can cope with the heat in summer. ‘Right plant, right place’ is one of the most useful guides when deciding your planting scheme.

Even if you have a north-facing border, where plants will get a lot of shade, there are still plenty of attractive plants that will flourish in this location, from foliage plants such as hostas to evergreen shrubs like Christmas box, Sarcococca confusa.

West-facing borders get some shade in the morning but still get a lot of sun in the afternoon, so plants will need to be sun-loving to cope with summer weather. East-facing borders get morning sun and afternoon shade, which means you can choose plants that thrive in partial shade or are shade-loving.

Choose your planting style

White themed border with tiarella and hostas — White-themed border with tiarella and hostas

Before rushing out to buy plants for your border, think about whether you want a particular style or colour scheme. Buying with a style in mind will help avoid a hotchpotch of colours and bitty planting. If you want something with a big impact, you could try exotic plants with architectural foliage like bananas and palms, or perhaps you like a more subtle approach with the soft colours of a cottage garden scheme. Keeping to a colour palette can also help improve the look of your display, whether you want to keep it simple with one colour or combine hot shades for something more vibrant.

Take a look at some different border styles:

How to position your plants

Red valerian growing with other flowering plants in a border

Once you've got your plants, where should you plant them out? It's worth placing your plants in their pots first, without planting them, to see how they'll look alongside each other, keeping in mind design tips like planting in threes or fives, and placing tall plants such as delphiniums or fennel at the back, which will also help cover boundary fences or walls. Don't forget to take into account each plant's mature size when working out how many plants you can fit in. Once your border is established, if there are gaps throughout the growing season, try filling them with annuals, which will provide colour. You can sow some yourself and have small plants ready, or buy plug plants as you need them.

Find plant suggestions here: