Border planning

[cantfixstupid]

Does anyone know of a website I can use to literally visualise new flower borders please?

I've dug up part of my garden for a new border so I'm starting the planting from scratch. I'm wondering if there is some way I can 'place' plants next to each other on a screen to see how they look, and swap and change as I see fit. I'd have thought in this day and age that there might be something out there but haven't found it yet.

Also, anyone who has planned a border from scratch, do you have any advice on what to do, and also anything you wish you hadn't done?

As a newbie garden design student I completely empathise! We are taught using a fairly complex industry CAD programme on which we can construct 3D planting plans, but we are always encouraged to thoroughly research and draw our designs first. It's hard!

It's crucial to think about the aspect and soil type of your new border. I've just planted a brand new one up and think that despite knowing about the eventual spread of my plants it's been way too tempting to plant more densely than I should.

I suspect the experienced gardeners on here will actually do an amazing job of planning and planting with their knowledge of what grows well where, and a good eye for combining colour and form. I am happy to send you some book and website suggestions that I've found helpful - got some stuff to do in the house now but can get onto it tomorrow, if that would be useful?

Thank you @EnormousSexyCrimeUnit.

As I've got more time on my hands at the moment I've really gone to town on the planning of this border. I've done a scale drawing on graph paper, researched plants taking into account height, spread, direction, sun, soil type, ph and anything else I can possibly think of.

I'm going for a mixture of shrubs with winter interest and perennials and annuals. But where I'm struggling is the combination of colours and textures and I just can't imagine how plant 'a' would look next to plant 'b', or whether plant 'c' might be a better choice.

Any suggestions you have for further reading would be brilliant, thank you.

Sounds like you are very on top of it!

I think the best thing to do is look at lots of images of borders to see what you are drawn to. I have found that putting a specific search into Pinterest - for example, architectural leafy green plants for shade - brings up lots of ideas and some have planting plans attached. The Crocus website also has plant combination plans under the Inspiration tab on the home page.

In terms of specific plant combinations I would highly recommend Linden Hawthorne's book Gardening with Shape, Line and Texture - A Plant Design Sourcebook. The title sounds rather dry but I think it's very readable; she has an engaging writing style, years of horticultural experience and there are plenty of photos. She talks about painting with plants and then groups hundreds of shrubs, perennials, bulbs and climbers into the different forms and shapes they create in the border, which is really useful. She also indicates the soil type, aspect and hardiness that the specific plant requires so you can select what will suit your border.

For colour, I like the RHS Colour Companion - a visual dictionary of colour for gardeners, by Dr Ross Bayton and Richard Sneesby. But also worth looking online for colour wheel examples for contrasting/complimentary colours that work well together as I realise you may not want to buy too many books!

@EnormousSexyCrimeUnit, thank you.

I think I'm starting to narrow down my choices for the shrubs at least. I'm finding the RHS website very useful for saving info on plants.

I just find it strange that in today's world that there isn't something available online for planning, like we can for kitchens for example.

I also save lists of plants on the RHS website, and find it very useful. A note of caution, though - the RHS plant dimensions (where the eventual height and spread is included in the plant information) are not very accurate. I would cross reference with the Crocus website where the height and spread are more realistic, which is important for planning.

Have just been reading through Matt James' book for the RHS 'How to plant a garden' which I think would be really helpful if you're still minded to buy more books!

@EnormousSexyCrimeUnit, thank you very much for your comment about RHS. Oddly enough I've been wondering about their dimensions recently as they do seem to be quite vague, such as 0.5m-1m. I've got a low wall that I want to plant up against so I do need to know if it's nearer one end of the scale or the other. Crocus may become my new friend ;)