Planting up new beds…. Does this look right?

[Mangoflimtastic]

So we’ve created a couple of new beds in the garden.
They’ve all been rotavated and mushroom compost dug in
I’ve ordered all the plants and placed them - would you lovely gardeners pls take a look and advise before they go in?
long post as want to make it clear what bed is what….

beds 1 and 2 End of long north facing garden, gets plenty of sun
mix of nepeta, lambs ears in the middle with a couple sanguisorba tanna thread through
erigeron at the front
some miscanthus will be coming also in 9cm pots to go at the back?

Pics of beds 1 and 2….. plants spaced ok?

Then bed 2 opens out under a pear tree. It’s gets slightly shadier but still afternoon sun. I’ve clustered some lambs ear and nepeta then there’s some salvia nemerosa. Then I’ve put in some bergenia and tiarella.

OK it won’t let me add any more pics so hopefully you can get the idea. There’s also a couple of shrubs I wanted to show you but will try tomorrow!

Haven’t planted up anything big before so would appreciate any comments!

I think it looks a bit crowded- how big will each of the plants get once mature?

As you have a mix, the risk is the bigger hardier varieties will out compete and strangle weaker ones unless you give the space.

How big are the beds? At one point they don't look to be wider than about 30cm. Depending on the variety, nepeta will easily grow to a mound 30cm in diameter by the summer, so you wouldn't want anything directly in front or behind it.

It also all looks very evenly spaced - which is fine if that's how you like it, and it's how you'd plant bedding in a Victorian garden (or on a roundabout), but it might look a bit unusual with these particular plants, because they'll all grow in different habits and to different sizes, so some will just look squished.

It’s key not to plant for the side the plants are now, but what they will be, and allow them to grow. I also think it will shortly be over crowded.

Sorry the size not the side

They look like they will be too cramped to me.
In Bed 1 picture, I see 16 plants, I wouldn't personally have more than 8 there, maybe 10 at max depending on the species.

I think there's way too many plants for the size of beds. Can you make the borders more generous, i.e wider? The taller plants need to be no more than one and a half times the border width.

Ok thanks I will space them out more
I want a really densely planted look
bit confused about the evenly spaced comment…. How else would it work?

Plants grow at different rates so a fast grower needs more space initially. When plants are overcrowded, the low growers suffer from lack of light and often die.

To be honest, it is usually better to plant things in groups of 3 or more rather than individually and all mixed up. You get more impact that way, and smaller things don't get swamped by the big stuff.

You won't necessarily end up with it looking densely planted, though - it's more likely your plants will grow poorly because they're competing, and will end up either looking stunted, or dying/struggling to flower.

About spacing - if it was me, I'd give something like a nepeta a good big space to grow into (does depend whether it's, say, Six Hills Giant or Walker's Low ...). But erigeron doesn't need quite so much (not it won't seed into it if it can). So I might put the erigeron closer together, maybe three or so plants in a little clump, so you have more impact.

I probably also wouldn't think in terms of 'back, middle, front,' because you don't really have the space. You'd get a nice effect with, say, one nepeta, then a little clump of erigeron and some stachys diagonally behind them, then another nepeta, then maybe some miscanthus? So not each thing regularly spaced apart from the others, but each thing in a space that suits the size of it?

Usually, when planting a new border, the gaps in the first couple of years are filled with annuals - easy to grow hardy annual seeds like calendula and poppies scattered around are ideal. By year three, it is time to lift and divide clumps of perennials which are becoming invasive or overcrowded. You'll need to lift and divide every year if you plant too closely.

NB, this is partly about trends (though quite long-enduring trends) in garden design.

Back in the 70s you could see the tail end of the Victorian fashion for planting things in regular grids, like you have here, which works if everything is going to grow to about the same size.

Since then, the idea of 'naturalistic' planting has taken hold. It isn't really naturalistic at all, but the idea is to make it look as if you've got several nepeta because a clump of it self-seeded down the border, or you've got three stachys here and five there, because they've seeded off from an original plant. The idea is that it should have the slightly random, repeating-in-clumps effect you get if you look at wild colonies of plants.

Obviously you may think this is all pretentious twaddle and prefer simply to plant in nice rows; it's really up to you - but if you want your garden to look broadly like what pictures in garden magazines look like, it is most likely they're doing the naturalistic clumps thing.

What I do is check how tall and wide each plant will be in a couple of years, then plant based on that. So if it will grow to 30cm, give it 30cm space around it.

While waiting for it to grow, you can plant annual bedding plants to fill in the space (cheap as chips at the moment), or put out pots in the gaps with your tender perennials that then come indoors for winter.

Also you definitely want to cluster the same kind of plants together rather than alternating everything, you’ll get a much bigger impact like that and give them all a better chance of survival.

Which Nepeta did you get? I have Giant Cathills and it grows big, fast!!

Personally I really like what you've done op and I'm an experienced gardener. We like the cottage garden look with no gaps so I can see where you're coming from.

Are they lambs ears? They spread quite quickly so I wouldn't put those as a 'group of three' as others suggest.

If I were you I'd plant it up however you like and if something starts to take over you could always dig it up and move it! I've moved plenty of plants in my time... usually they don't mind.

If on the other hand you want to spread them out you could fill in the gaps with quick growing annuals for this year.