January 15th, 2026Beetham’s Botanicals
Well here I am penning another article for you, the reader, to enjoy and Happy Holidays to all!
This time I’ll be giving advice on preparing and planting a perennial (or herbaceous) border in your garden.
These borders are quite common in the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in the UK, where they can often be found located in front of a stone (or brick) wall and sometimes a clipped evergreen hedge, that offer protection from (some) prevailing weather but also act as an ornamental backdrop that helps showcase the plants.
In my long time as a professional landscape and garden designer, I once had the privilege of starting a long perennial border (20m long x 2.5m wide) from scratch that did have a stone wall at the rear facin north and was wide enough to accommodate three layers of plantings from front to back.
So once you’ve sited the garden bed there is one very important initial bed preparation that requires you, or a fit young person (while you’re sipping on a well earned G&T!), to double dig the existing soil which is achieved by digging a trench one spade deep (taking the soil to the far end of the border), forking over the newly exposed subsoil adding organic compost and manure and backfilling with the next spadeful of soil along the trench.
This will ensure maximum growth and health of your chosen plants. If you are planting into a newly purpose-built raised garden bed then make sure to backfill with a good friable loam mixed with organic compost and manure.
Once the border is ready for planting you might want to consider some irrigation as it is much easier to lay the tubing in rows parallel with the bed before actual planting.
And now to choosing the plants that will please your palate. The genera I have listed below will display a cornucopia of colours that will flow from early spring through to autumn.
You can be bold as you like with vibrant reds and oranges or more subdued with paler hints of cream, yellow, blue and mauve. Each genus is followed by a capital letter in brackets to represent its growth habit: (S) = small, (M) = medium and (T) = tall.
Early spring: crocus (S), helleborus (S), hyacinthus (S) & narcissus (S)
Mid to late spring: echium (T – see image top right – good for height!), iris (S & M), papaver (M) & paeonia (M)
Late spring to early summer: achillea (M), chrysanthemum (M), coreopsis (S), delphinium (M), hemerocallis (S & M), lupinus (M), romneya (M – see image middle right) & salvia (S, M & T)
Mid summer to autumn: anemone (M – see image lower right), aster (S & M), dahlia (M & T), echinacea (M), helianthus (M), nerine (S), perovskia (M), salvia (S, M & T – what a fab genus), sedum (S & M) & solidago (M)
And don’t be afraid to pay homage to the prairie-style gardening that attempts to mimic the Northern American drylands by planting ornamental grasses such as calamagrostis (M & T), miscanthus (M & T) and pennisetum (M)..
These look great with their strap-like leaves swirling in the breeze and, for those in frost-prone areas, attract morning frosts that add an unexpected bonus as the border rests over winter.
So, as I write this, we are sweltering through an unsettling three-day heatwave here in the Central Victorian Highlands, nevertheless you, my reader, will soldier on (perhaps after a icy cold beer or whatever tipple is of your choice) knowing that gardening can be cruel and yet sometimes amazingly satisfying.
Cheers JB (trading as “Trees in Australia”)
Next time: Significant trees in Victoria…
