The best decoration for a personal garden is multi-tiered flower beds, fragrant with tart-sweet aromas, filling the space with bright colors, impressive with marvelous representatives of the flora. Unlike spontaneous thickets, landscaped single-level flower beds and alpine slides, they not only successfully complement the landscape design of the site, but also make it possible to practically use the spaces in the garden.
A multi-level flower bed is a beautiful garden composition, the size and design of which you can choose yourself
Multi-tiered flower beds are original in design, most often environmentally friendly, and allow you to harmoniously combine a wide variety of flower varieties in a minimal area. And only large-scale labor costs at the registration stage make individual homeowners think.
How to choose the right flowers?
A flower bed with several levels must have a special design; usually, during watering, water in it flows from the upper levels to the lower. When selecting plants, a summer resident must take this circumstance into account in order to create optimal conditions for green spaces.
Suitable choices for high humidity levels in spring are primroses, ranunculus, forget-me-nots and violets, while irises and geraniums grow well here in summer; astilbes can replace them in August.
On the upper tiers you will need to plant drought-resistant flowers: cosmos, iberis, marigolds, nasturtium or aster. You need to know that these plants cannot survive without watering at all; at least water them once a week.
Perennials for a multi-level garden flower bed are far from the best option; the plants will have to be disturbed all the time in order to replant them.
Why do we need multi-tiered flower beds and flower beds in landscape design?
Pansies, low-growing geraniums, ampelous petunias, miniature asters... It can be very difficult to arrange all your favorite flowers in a small area. Playing with levels in tiered flower beds provides this opportunity and makes it easy to escape the monotony and simplicity of the flat landscape. Such flower beds look advantageous in the middle of a lawn, evenly shading the bright colors of flowers with calm greenery.
You can make a multi-tiered flowerbed with your own hands without much expense
A wide variety of building materials are suitable for making flower beds.
Any items that can be found in the household are used.
Garden paths are decorated with narrow, extended structures. And tall cascading flower beds with climbing plants are successfully placed around the gazebo, along fences and walls. Often a two-tiered flower garden is set up near the stairs in the yard. As a rule, the design of flower beds follows the trajectory of the steps, and the plants ascend to the top point or fall to the very bottom. The original option is a stepped shelf with spicy herbs, which plays both a decorative and practical function.
A flowerbed with stone borders where spicy and medicinal herbs are grown
A tall flower bed with strawberries made from old car tires
If there is a small artificial or natural pond on the site, it can also be supplemented with a fantasy composition of flowering annuals, succulents, stones and other things. This option is called rockery and has become increasingly popular in recent years.
A flower bed made of natural stone looks great on the shore of a pond
A multi-level flower bed is becoming more common in our latitudes, but still remains a novelty. Many owners of country houses and summer cottages are afraid of this element of landscape design. And the reason for this is a banal ignorance of the design rules:
- Suitable background. You should not arrange a decorative flower garden directly between the beds, near the barn, or near the barn with the farmstead. The optimal location is on the lawn in the recreation area, near steps and garden paths, at the entrance to the house or along the fence.
- Successful design. The lower tier should not be too wide. All subsequent ones, accordingly, have even smaller sizes. Also important form! A large round flower bed near the fence will look out of place. And a small composition in wooden containers in the middle of tall bushes risks going unnoticed.
- Material of manufacture. Usually the choice depends on the potential location, desired plants, budget for arrangement and landscape of a particular yard.
- Selecting flowers for planting and sowing. Landscape designers do not recommend combining plants of different sizes on the same level of a multi-tiered flower bed. Color also matters: the flower garden can be filled with monochrome varieties or you can choose plants with different flower colors. The effect will be completely different! At the lower levels it is worth planting moisture-loving species, since all the liquid after watering will accumulate from below.
What materials can be used?
In the photo of a multi-tiered flower bed there are many interesting structures made from boxes, pallets or tires that have served their purpose. You can use factory materials and whatever is at hand; the structure is built in the form of a pyramid, tower or staircase. The greater the height of the structure, the more reliable the fastenings should be.
It’s easy to make flower beds in the country in the form of ladders; any novice craftsman can take on making them. The set of necessary tools includes a plane, a hacksaw and a hammer; nails are used as fastening elements, and this homemade product is made from boards. Put together a simple ladder of 3-4 tiers, lean it against a support and start planting flowers.
It is good, when possible, to hide beautiful flower beds from the rain under a canopy, otherwise you will need to cover individual structural elements with a special paint material or primer with water-repellent properties.
A multi-level structure can be quickly erected from old tires, which can differ in diameter and height; the largest ones should be placed at the bottom.
Pour soil into the tires and plant flowers for the flower bed; if desired, paint the tires using paints and varnishes for outdoor use.
Beginners may be interested in information on how to make a flowerbed without any “props” yourself. This is easy to do if you use a shovel to give a large earthen mound a stepped shape.
- Indoor ventilation
Choosing grass for the lawn
Deutzia is blooming - summer is coming
Video description
In the video, the designer explains how you can make a pyramid out of flower pots and form a multi-tiered flower structure:
Original flower beds
And a few words about flower beds made from non-standard products that have nothing to do with flower beds. One of them is a composition of different objects, where ordinary yellow rubber boots stand out. At the same time, wicker baskets, metal vases and even an ordinary wooden bench were used as other elements.
Flower garden as a composition of different pot forms Source almutaafi.com
Today, many designers use used car tires to form flower beds. This is where there are no limits to imagination, because this building material can be cut, painted, and made into various fancy shapes. For example, the simplest option is to stack different amounts of tires on top of each other, forming floors. The photo below shows one of these options.
Multi-level flowerbed made from car tires Source studiofmp.com
It should be noted that the variety of multi-tiered structures for a flower garden is huge. As many materials as there are on the market, so many options for constructing flower beds can be offered. There are no restrictions on size and shape.
Using natural stone for landscaping a summer cottage
Many summer residents create a multi-level structure for flowers using stone, which is distinguished by its enviable durability and unpretentiousness.
The material has an attractive appearance and is not at all afraid of precipitation. Feel free to fantasize and implement any design ideas to create an original flower arrangement near your home.
You can look up flower bed plans on the Internet in advance, but this is not necessary, it all depends on the desires of the owner. You can make a design plan yourself, for its construction they use fragments, even stones, large and small, you can specially buy decorative stone.
The following algorithm of actions is to be performed:
- Choose a place for the future flower bed, dig a hole with a depth of 25 cm.
- Place a 10 cm thick layer of sand at the bottom of the hole.
- Lay stones to give strength to the structure, use a liquid cement solution.
- Lay out a 2 or 4 cm layer of drainage and pour fertilized soil on top.
Important! It is necessary to allow each layer of stones filled with cement mortar to dry thoroughly.
The flowerbed can be given almost any geometric shape: circle, semicircle, square, rectangle, oval and polygon with numerous bends.
Planting trees on the siteKerria or Keria: photo and description of the shrub, rules and subtleties of growing a plant with yellow flowers
Ornamental shrubs in landscape design blooming in autumn
Application of wood
An attractive tiered flower garden can be made using wood. The material serves as an environmentally friendly frame.
Stumps with a hollowed out middle, boxes, and boards are used. You can even use branches. Wood will allow you to create interesting structures with a rustic flavor.
A simple option made from building blocks
The peculiarity of the design is that the flowers are planted in a recess inside the building block. Such a flower garden looks interesting, decorating a summer cottage.
First you need to decide on the shape of the flowerbed, then prepare a recess for the structure, pour a layer of crushed stone into the dug hole. The tiers of the structure are laid out using blocks, inside which earth is poured and flowers are planted.
Tiered flower beds can be made to order in specialized companies; the dimensions, materials used and design complexity are specified.
Brick
Interestingly, garden flower beds can be made from any available material. For example, after construction there may often be extra bricks left, which can create an unusual flower garden that will consist of several floors.
Moreover, any form can be created, it all depends on the place where it is supposed to be placed. Remains of crushed stone, sand and other construction waste can be used as drainage in such flowerbeds. This flowerbed is made for a very long time.
New life
It often happens that a container or other large container is no longer in use, then there is always a place for such items in the flower garden. A plastic flower bed will become an integral part of the landscape design, and a wooden barrel with flowers fits well into the country style.
An antique chest of drawers that you inherited from your grandmother does not fit in with the Art Nouveau style that you are a fan of. However, you can come up with a more interesting purpose for that furniture covered in dust in the closet - place lavender and rosemary in its pull-out drawers.
Any unexpected options are welcome; use old things in a new role.
Advice from an experienced gardener: A multi-level flower bed looks most impressive when all the flowers bloom in it at the same time.
A DIY flower garden can delight you with original combinations of contrasting shades. No less attractive will be color schemes with transitions from one tone to another: for example, a red tint first to orange, and then to yellow.
To completely transform the site, you will need a minimum of available materials. Use your imagination and focus on your own taste preferences; turning a summer house into a blooming garden is a feasible task if you use all the recommendations mentioned in the article.
Plant arrangement
An attractive flower bed may only contain a single type of plant. Multi-colored pansies or petunia can be planted as a continuous carpet.
The alternation of colors looks original. In this case, it is recommended to place options with darker inflorescences below. It is possible to create colorful stripes or patterns.
Types of multi-level flower beds
Multi-level flower beds are divided according to the number of tiers. They can be two-, three-tier or have an arbitrary cascade design. The three-tiered flower bed is usually the most common in gardening. A two-tier flower bed is used for small and decorative corners.
They are also divided according to the geometry of the tiers rising above each other. They can be mounted in the form of a square, rectangle or pyramid. The most complex type of construction is the pyramid.
