Garden decoration

A beautiful garden in the country can be separated from the house and yard with a low-growing hedge. For a lively and useful fence, Japanese quince, cinquefoil, barberry thunberg and admiration, dog rose, hawthorn, black currant, golden, alpine, St. John’s wort, gooseberry, holly mahonia are quite suitable. These shrubs tolerate a haircut well; any original borders and fences can be formed from them.

With vegetables of different colors, you can create a whole artistic canvas in your summer cottage. It is quite capable of anyone. However, when creating such a flower garden, it is necessary to take into account several factors necessary for the conceived garden to bring joy and benefit, be beautiful and fruitful.

Consider a few tips for decorating a garden in the country, which will help you easily and simply achieve excellent results and harvests.

Before you start directly drawing up a plan for laying out garden plots, it should be noted that vegetables need a sunny place, protected from the north winds (you can protect the beds with a taller hedge, and from evergreen shrubs).

It is necessary to leave space for a compost heap, which can be decorated with herbaceous perennials (sage, lavender, St. John’s wort, oregano, etc.), undersized shrubs.

The place for the garden should not be located far from the irrigation system. Be sure to observe crop rotation in beautiful beds.

We are planning a garden

First you need to determine the composition of the soil on the site, its acidity, composition (sandy, clay, peat, limestone, loam). This is important because, for example, sorrel, potatoes love acidic soil, carrots, turnips, pumpkins, root crops love moderately acidic soil, onions, legumes, cucumbers love moderate and slightly alkaline soil, and cabbage and beets love neutral and slightly alkaline soil.

When planning a garden, consider how much time you can allocate for caring for it. Usually these are eight to nine beds, which can be arranged in the form of geometric shapes, such as a square, triangle, different rays.

The sun should illuminate one side of them from sunrise, the other — at sunset, which is especially important for light-loving vegetables, herbs, i.e. beds are located from north to south. The minimum lighting for plants is from 6 am to 7 pm.

Well, if the plot for the garden is on a flat place, if the territory is uneven, then it is better to take the southern or southeastern, southwestern gentle slopes under it, but the northern ones are completely unsuitable for this.

We must not forget about the drainage of the beds — good drainage is needed so that the root system of plants develops and grows stronger, and does not rot from an excess of moisture, does not suffocate from a lack of oxygen in too wet soil.

When planning a garden, it must be taken into account that the agricultural technology of some crops is completely different in the need of plants for light, moisture, and soil composition. Therefore, zones are planned first, and already zones — for beds. Such planning makes it easy to observe the compatibility of plants with each other, to ensure the correct crop rotation, which will allow you to get a good harvest.

The beds and paths between them should be comfortable and proportionate. The bed should not be too wide — so that on both sides you can freely reach its middle. And the path — so that you can walk along it freely, even better — so that a garden wheelbarrow can freely pass along it.

Tracks

The paths between the beds should not be overgrown with weeds and take a lot of time for weeding, it is better to cover them. There are various options for equipping paths — turfing from lawn grass that is resistant to trampling, covering with tiles, gravel, broken bricks.

So that weeds do not grow through them, first, geotextiles or roofing material that do not transmit light must be laid on the paths, and crushed stone, gravel, stone chips, and other material are already on it.

There are various ready-made slabs for garden paths on sale — rubber, plastic, or special roll coatings. Another option is a cover made from plastic bottle caps, which can also serve as a massage mat.

beds

Different types of beds are made for a decorative garden: high, vertical, wall-mounted, box-beds, pyramid-beds, etc. This is especially valuable and practical if the plot is small, but you want to grow many different vegetable crops.

High beds — are created for almost one season, mainly for gourds, sometimes for potatoes. Compost is reported in them, covered with soil from above. In areas where the bear is common, compost is not added, and the ridges are raised by adding soil.

The most popular beds-boxes, with which, as parts of the designer, you can lay out the territory as your heart desires. They are made simply: fences are installed on pre-planned and prepared places, then drainage material (crushed stone, brick chips, pebbles, gravel, expanded clay, etc.) is poured into such a box at the bottom, a small layer of sand is poured on it, then prepared soil is added . The fencing of such beds are boards, slate, plastic sheets.

For a small area and not only another option is a pyramid-bed. It belongs to vertical gardening. Most often, pyramids are used for strawberries, but other plants can be planted in them.

Therefore, pyramid beds are used not only for practical benefit, but also as an element of landscape design. It can be made from any improvised materials, of any size and shape. For example, plastic bottles, car tires, metal or plastic pipes, even flower pots are used.

They make pyramids out of wood and plastic. You can make them in different shapes, heights, diameters — as your imagination tells you and how it will be convenient.

Vertical beds can be wall-mounted, or in the form of a rack, made of plastic boxes, tires, construction mesh, wooden or plastic barrels, PVC sewer pipes, plastic bottles, wooden pallets, etc. It is better to fill such beds with ready-made soil, better — bought in a store.

But such beds are more suitable for strawberries, herbs, flowers. Their soil quickly dries up and depletes, so the plants have to be fed and watered more often.

Watering

When creating an ornamental garden, it is necessary to think over the methods of watering correctly, which is very important especially in dry seasons.

The most popular method is watering from a hose with a sprayer. You can use various containers (for example, plastic bottles) that are dug into the soil, from small holes the water will seep directly to the roots.

Another way is drip. A pipe with small holes is laid in the box as the box itself is being laid, then it is connected to the main hose or pipe. Drip irrigation saves a lot of time, effort and water consumption. Now special stores sell ready-made kits for drip irrigation.

Helpful Ideas

To make it comfortable for plants in such beautiful, original beds to harvest good crops, you can use some secret things like little things. However, the little things help a lot in caring for the garden and growing your favorite plants:

• it is good to add hydrogel to the soil of vertical beds — it will not dry out quickly, but it will retain moisture longer
• it is useful to plant marigolds, nasturtium and other neighbor flowers next to vegetables, which naturally protect other plants from pests
• if suddenly ants started up on the beds, you can plant a bush of celandine right in the anthill — the ants will leave
• it is good to put a net at the bottom of the beds-boxes — moles will not spoil the planting
• after harvesting vegetables, it is good to immediately sow green manure in the beds
• mustard — quickly gives a green mass, disinfects the soil, gets rid of the wireworm, nourishes with nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium
• rape — structures, loosens the soil, which helps plant roots to breathe, increases moisture capacity
• lupine — gives a lot of green mass, enriches the soil with nitrogen, loosens the soil, repels the larvae of the cockchafer, mole cricket and other soil pests with roots
• vetch with oats enrich the soil with nitrogen and potassium
• next to vegetables, you can plant honey plants in the beds (white clover, coltsfoot, lungwort, mint, lemon balm, borage, phacelia), which will attract bees, which will ensure pollination of flowers to increase the yield
• Medvedka does not like parsley, marigolds, calendula; by planting them around the perimeter, you can protect your garden

Photo of a garden at their summer cottage