If you want to see your garden similar to your favorite forest clearing or birch grove outside the outskirts, then your style is natural. What plants are best suited for such a garden and what techniques should be used.
Natural style
For all its “naturalness” natural style is not a wild space where everything grows by itself. The main thing is that the site should look pristine, but … not neglected. Care, accordingly, will also require no less than any other garden. Sanitary pruning of trees and shrubs, weeding in compositions, fertilization, disease and pest control, watering are required. In short, almost a complete set of works.
However, there are still advantages. Acquisition of wild forms of plants or similar cultural variations will cost less than garden innovations, as a rule, including an increasingly inconceivable range of colors, completely unsuitable for a natural garden. And you can save on the arrangement of seating places by opting for a bench-log and a table made of a wooden block with a wide saw cut. Homemade furniture made of aspen or alder poles will also organically fit. It is good if it stands under a canopy, in which sheaves of reed will play the role of roofing materials. If the garden is surrounded by a field or forest, then choose a netting mesh as a fence to ensure the garden blends seamlessly with the landscape background. Ordinary fences are best decorated with climbing plants or hedges.
A plan is indispensable
Russian nature is so rich in beautiful and harmonious landscapes that caress the eye that it only remains to choose the desired compositions and think over their embodiment in the size of the garden. Of course, much (and practically everything) cannot be recreated in full size. Only the owners of hectare estates will be able to afford a real landscape garden, the rest of the summer residents will have to be content with a garden in a natural style. However, due to its miniature size, it will not lose its charm.
- First, decide on a seating area. If it is alone, then it is better to place it in the most secluded corner of the garden or next to the house. In the latter case, the resting part can be represented as an open veranda surrounded by green walls, and a canopy with lattice walls-supports for climbing plants. In the far part of the garden, it is better to put a gazebo or a capital shed so as not to run away from the rain that has happened across the entire territory to the house.
- Outline all compositions separately from the plan.that you want to plant in the garden. It is not necessary to be able to draw details here, the main thing is to decide on the size of the landings.
- Then mark the winding paths and accentsthat you want to pay attention to. These elements are closely related, as they allow you to create a garden with a “forest” path winding through the green thickets, leading now to a small stream with a bridge, now to a sun-drenched lawn. It depends only on your ability to create such different and unexpectedly replacing zones whether the garden will be interesting and intriguing. There are, however, some points that are successfully used by landscape designers around the world.
Traditional techniques
- Planting a large bush at the turn, because of which the next view will open.
- Romantic alleys of a long line of supports with vines.
- A small alley will be lengthened by a large mirror at its end, and in order not to create a dead end, in this case, a sharp turn is made in front of it.
- To make the clearing look more voluminous, a small group of plants is planted near its edge and provide a smooth transition from perennials or low-growing shrubs from the surrounding trees to the lawn.
- If you are a fan of sculptures, place them in unexpected places, next to a large bush or among the branches of a green hedge.
When placing the remaining compositions in the plan, take into account the illumination of this place, for which you will need to mark the location of the site relative to the cardinal points. Many magnificent plants naturally grow in shady forests, so the shade in this case is not a hindrance, but a reason for adjusting the assortment.
All the places
Any plant, finding itself in unsuitable soil, withers, and natural species – especially. They are able to grow and bloom well, albeit in extreme, but familiar conditions. Therefore, carefully read the requirements for the composition and acidity of the soil, as well as the degree of its moisture. Think of a worthy replacement in the form of cultured forms with larger flowers, textured foliage, or miniature forms.
The latter is especially true for trees. You will not actually arrange a pine forest in the garden, will you ?! But mountain pine and its forms can be planted, and in the heather it will look just like a young pine tree at the edge of the forest, surrounded by heather. By adding to the composition Crowberry, Julia’s wolfberry, garden blueberry, you will get a beautifully flowering cultural, but very “natural” corner.
For a flower garden. Recently, varieties of forest and meadow geraniums have appeared on sale. But the most colorful geranium is magnificent, especially on a sunny border in the vicinity of feather grass and mullein. In general, a natural garden in the sun amazes with a riot of colors with overflows of various shades. Close planting of many species allows you to get rid of weeds for a long time. Here, discreet grains diluted, but replete with inflorescences korostavnik, eryngium, meadowsweet, elecampane, lupine, yarrow, bells, lychnis, highlander, Fischer’s carnation and turkish carnation, steep, daylilies, etc. plant species. The listed plants are also suitable for a separately located composition, in this case its edges can be of any shape, but always with a well-groomed edge line.
In the front garden. Of course, the border described above will not fit the usual Russian front garden. If you have this “front part”, then regardless of the appearance of the “inner garden” such large-flowered specimens as dahlias, perennial asters, , delphiniums, foxgloves, mallow. Their distinctive appearance can be slightly softened by tall grains such as miscanthus. If you love roses, then opt for a group of ground cover small-flowered roses. It is advisable to select the varieties to match the surroundings – for example, pink roses, immersed in a white-pink cloud of gypsophila, against the background of purple-leaved heucheras with pink veins. Although it will turn out to be somewhat variegated, but what can we do if our love for flowers is ineradicable.
To the reservoir. Here is the expanse for the familiar marigold, the cleaver, covering the shores with sunny flowers in the spring, white aerial seedlings of cotton grass, spectacular sedges, strict calamus, iris, water lilies and a tail that settles in shallow water. Duckweed and horsetail are practically indispensable for the mini-swamp. When planting plants in a pond, remember not to oversaturate it, pay attention to natural small lakes – in the most harmonious of them, a third of the water surface remains free.
For the shade. In shady places, the natural garden will also show itself in full glory. What are the famous funnel-shaped handsome ferns – an ostrich feather and a male shield-borer. But in order to recreate the forest surroundings, it is not enough just to plant ferns. Companion plants are needed, and they do not have to be specific to the area. Many others will give the feeling of the forest, creating textured green thickets. Add to them rogers horse chestnut, rhubarb, coupena, hosts, periwinkle, tenacious, tiarella, butterbur and, of course, … The latter are better to choose white varieties – they look more spectacular in the shade, and they will be more consonant with the natural orientation of the garden.
On the lawn. For in this case, it is not necessary to select a lawn mixture: if you do not have a lot of weeds, then it is enough to weed out the existing ones and regularly mow the remaining ones, otherwise select a mixture of resistant, fast-growing herbs. The clearing, strewn with numerous flowers of white clover, looks great. You can also opt for a high flowering lawn, the so-called Moorish. Plant here herbs with narrow leaves and short stature, as well as a floral component: dyeing navel, spreading bell, cornflower, cornflower, gypsophila, toadflax, bedstraw, lush carnation, marigolds. Such a lawn is mowed once after the flowering of plants, but it is not recommended to trample it either.
As a vertical. Vines in a natural garden should not stand out as a separate component. If the garden is made with a predominance of green, then it is inappropriate to plant red clematis and roses. Soothe the supports with unpretentious and fast-growing girlish grapes. If you really want colors, then choose a yellow-leaved form of hops or clematis with dark blue flowers – these are the colors that look natural and are least striking, and not the “Mediterranean” pastel blue or pink, as it is believed. The prince, echinocystis, wood-mouth pliers, honeysuckle honeysuckle are perfect, in the fall the Coigne grapes will delight with an outfit. For support, you can use an old dried tree, but first it should be well strengthened.
Trees and shrubs. From shrubs for a garden in a natural style, select species with a beautiful bush shape, vigorous flowering and preferably decorative fruiting. These include spireas, Korolkov’s honeysuckle, Tatar honeysuckle, white dogwood, Hungarian lilac, Amur lilac, black elderberry and red elderberry, Kuril tea, gray rose, bubblegum. Variegated forms look unnatural, but you can choose some purple-leaved forms, such as hazel. Shrubs are not subjected to geometric shearing, the exception is hedges, which, if necessary, restrictions in height and width can be made shorn. From the outlines peculiar to this type look better. That is, it is better to choose conical, pyramidal or columnar shapes, rather than spherical and cushion shapes.