For most modern farmers, the garden is not only an affordable source of food, but also a springboard for the realization of their creative ideas. Original beds in the country – this is the fashion trend of today. Making them with your own hands is not at all difficult, but at the same time they deliver a lot of aesthetic pleasure. With their help, the entire garden can be turned into an excellent recreation area, decorated with vegetable and berry plants. By creating beautiful compositions from ridges, you can surprise relatives and friends, get a rich harvest and enjoy plenty of grown products.
When creating a beautiful garden, you can use your own ideas or emphasize them from previously created projects. So, below in the article we outline the basic principles of arranging a garden and offer creative ideas for creating beds in the country with our own hands.
Basic principles
There are several principles that should be considered before starting the planning of a summer cottage:
- Raised ridges without a box are best erected in a black soil garden when there is no need to purchase soil.
- high beds are the prototype of flower beds, they are highly decorative and help protect plants from rodents.
- Warm ridges are recommended to build for growing heat-loving plants. They are the best option for regions with low climatic temperatures.
- In dry regions, plants can be planted in holes.
- For clay soils and low-lying areas, high beds should be preferred.
- It is convenient to carry out weeding and watering on ridges with a height of 40 to 60 cm.
- The width of the beds should not be more than 120 cm, as this will complicate the process of tillage and plant care.
- The passage between the ridges should be at least 30 cm. If you plan to create ridges with a frame, then this distance should be increased to 60 cm, which will allow you to easily move the wheelbarrow in the aisles.
- The optimal orientation of the beds in the garden on the cardinal points from south to north. With this arrangement, the plants will be evenly lit by the sun.
- In the shade, you can create beautiful ridges for growing greenery.
- Ridges in the garden can be placed near the walls of stationary buildings (houses, garages, sheds) on the south side. In this case, the walls will act as a wind shelter.
- Several crops can be grown on the same bed at once, but the “neighbors” should be chosen very carefully so that they do not harm each other.
Taking into account the above principles, and evaluating the existing site, it is possible to plan the type, shape and parameters of the beds. At the same time, both sunny and shady areas can be used to implement ideas for creating beautiful beds.
Ideas for creating beautiful beds
There are at least two answers to the question of how to make beautiful beds: create the original-shaped beds themselves from decorated materials or plant plants by combining their various colors and shapes. These two techniques can also be combined to get wonderful ridges.
plant combinations
It is worth noting that each plant has its own decorative and uniqueness. At the same time, by combining different cultures, you can get ridges of amazing beauty. Compositions can include flowers and herbs. Some of them will help protect the main vegetable crops from diseases and pests.
Lettuce is one of the most ornamental plants. There are many varieties of it, with different leaf shapes and colors. So, for example, the Zabava leaf variety will bring red hues to the garden. Lettuce “Assol” refers to the head variety, its leaves are green in color with a red border around the edges. These types of salad can decorate any garden. They can be planted in a mixed composition with crops such as carrots, radishes, cucumbers, strawberries. Also, lettuce can be planted together with parsley and basil. Herbaceous plants will be able to decorate shady areas of the earth.
Cabbage is another plant that can surprise with its beauty. So, ordinary white cabbage can be used to create decorative borders. Red varieties are great for decorating beds, for example, Rodima F1, Mikhnevskaya Beauty and others. Cauliflower “Amethyst F1” has a stunning purple color. You can bring a unique orange color to the garden by planting Cheddar F1 cauliflower.
Cabbage is great for neighborhood crops such as onions, dill, beets, celery.
It is worth noting that ridges with vegetable crops can also be decorated with flowers. So, marigolds are suitable for neighborhood with many plants. Their bright orange flowers will add a sunny mood and will delight even in the gloomiest weather. At the same time, marigolds will not only allow you to beautifully decorate the garden, but also protect plants from pests, for example, from aphids.
You can make beautiful beds in the garden by planting various plants in rows or geometric shapes. An example of such a unique, creative combination is shown in the photo below.
Unique frames
You can surprise others not only with the natural beauty of plants planted in an original way, but also with the design and shape of the beds. So, you can create beautiful beds in the country with the help of various, including improvised materials, such as stone, plastic, wood, vines. Ridges without a frame, but with an unusual shape, are also able to decorate any garden.
To create beautiful, original beds, it is not at all necessary to use artificially created frames. The natural border of the beds can be an ordinary green lawn. At the same time, it is quite easy to create even the most complex shapes. An example of such a design of beautiful beds can be seen in the photo below.
Such trench beds give a special look to any site, however, they have their drawbacks:
- lawn grass eventually tends to move to the garden, which requires constant weeding;
- no protection against rodents and other pests;
- beds quickly lose their shape and need to be constantly corrected.
Among the advantages of such beds, it is necessary to highlight the excellent decorative appearance, ease of cultivation and subsequent maintenance.
Do-it-yourself beds without a frame can be made high. An example of beautiful raised ridges without a frame is shown in the photo below.
Passages between makeshift ridges can be marked with a stone, such as crushed stone, or sawdust, which can be dug up next year as fertilizer.
An alternative to artificial materials in creating beds are undersized shrubs, massive vegetable plants and herbs. They can be used as a frame, however, a significant drawback in this case is the need to carry out regular maintenance of plantings.
Green framing of the beds can be done with the help of apical pachysandra, boxwood (shrubs), lavender (herbaceous plant). These plants are ideal for framing beds, but require special care and money. That is why they are often used to decorate flower beds in front of the front facade of buildings.
A beautiful frame for low beds can be made from improvised means, such as plastic, glass bottles, slate scraps, wooden blocks, ceramic tiles, bricks and other materials.
It is worth noting that improvised fences are quite reliable and durable, but do not have high decorative qualities. With the help of piece material, it is easy to create ridges of intricate, complex shapes.
High and multi-level ridges have a high decorative effect. So, to create high beds, you can use stone, brick, wooden blocks and boards.
High beds are called beds with a height of more than 40 cm. It is convenient to weed and water them. The technology of creating high beds allows you to protect vegetable plants from rodents and pests. The category of high also includes warm ridges, the filling of which allows you to grow vegetables in early spring. The technology of their creation is described in the video:
Most often, a wooden board or timber is used to create beautiful, high beds. They are widely available and easy to use. With the help of these natural, environmentally friendly materials, it is convenient to make rectangular and original triangular ridges.
Before making beds, wooden elements must be treated with antifungal agents and the inside of the frame must be protected with polyethylene, which will not allow moisture from the soil to be absorbed into the wood.
Stone structures are especially durable, highly decorative. However, their disadvantages include massiveness and high cost. Also, the disadvantage of stone frames is the inability to retain heat. So, the stone heats up and cools down very quickly. Under such conditions, plants are in a state of stress.
Wattle is a natural, flexible material that is perfect for framing vegetable beds. Wattle is especially popular when decorating ridges in a rustic-style landscape. The disadvantage of this material is its fragility.
Multi-level beds can become the property of any garden. They are highly decorative and allow you to grow several vegetable crops incompatible with each other at the same time. To create multi-level ridges, you can use plastic bottles, wood, stone and other materials.
Conclusion
Beautiful, original beds in the country with their own hands can be made by every farmer. It takes a little imagination and effort to do this. You can use purchased, improvised material or do without it altogether, creating patterns and ornaments from plants, drawing shapes from the ground. A lot of ideas on how to decorate your garden beautifully are proposed above in the article, however, the hands of each master will be able to create their own, new masterpiece in the garden.