I love to mix as well! My beds are young and still look bare, but I’m happy with them!

Mazerolm you such a great job combining colors, I always love seeing your gardens.

I like the milkweed in the middle of the lawn! Years ago, driving along a rural road noticed a nice clump of white daisies in the midst of the usual weedy scrubby edge. Came back that way a few hours later, all the scrub had been mowed by the highway dept, except for that single clump of white daisy. People care!

I find it lovely, mazerolm. I could sit in that blue chair all afternoon.

Yep

An attractive and interesting border, katob. I can also identify with the labour that goes into maintaining it.

We also mix everything in our beds. As long as it gives the colour, shape, size, texture we’re looking for we’ll try anything in our groupings.

Of course you mix!! What's the alternative.....a dedicated 'perennial' bed that is bare ground for 6 months out of the year? I guess if you have an English stately home with considerable acreage you could get away with it as it would not be hugely visible in winter but for a North American urban or suburban garden, mixed planting beds are the only way to go!! And that is also the way most landscape designers design.

The only time I can concieve of a bed dedicted to a specific plant type is either for those who collect a specific plant (and I even prefer these to be mixed with other, non-related plant types) or a cutting garden. Otherwise mixed is the only way to go.

Speaking for flower colour, with at least single mixed herbaceous perennial beds, each type of plant only blooms for a relatively short period off time (maybe 2 or 3 weeks is the average). If the priority is ongoing flower colour throughout the growing season, a wide mix of different perennials which bloom at different times is a requirement (that if climate and maintenance commitment make such a bed possible).

In Victorian and Edwardian times, the affluent could circumvent the problem with the option of having different sections of their large garden dedicated to types of plants which bloom at approximately the same time (viz. a spring garden or a "Michaelmas daisy" (latter, fall asters) garden.

Yes, I mix -- I think we all do. I try to do so in a controlled fashion, though, i.e. there is an orderliness to it, and there is cohesion. I'm not one of those stick-it-anywhere-you-find-space kind of people.

Lovely bed Katob. And yes I’m a messy mixer too ;0)

” I'm not one of those stick-it-anywhere-you-find-space kind of people.”

Ha! I’m one of those...then do my best to try and blend it all together.....

Guess we perennial gardeners are a mix too!

I very rarely find a garden that I don't like. The perfectly designed, the crammed in as you go... even a a complete weedy mess can be ok- as long as you put a nice edge to it. Actually I have a few spots in back that I just edged with the strimmer so that they don't look as neglected as they really are.

I'm glad to hear that so many people mix, I wasn't really that sure. Obviously I prefer it, but most of the gardens around here are narrow mulch beds with a few shrubs in back and a few perennials in front, and a lot of mulch in between, or just straight annuals. Then when the shrubs get to be shrub-sized they either get sheared to a ball or ripped out and replaced with smaller versions of same.

Sunny- I don't exactly have a large garden but for convenience (and not always the best look) I'm doing more grouping of same bloom season plants. I guess it sticks out because they're not as mixed as the rest of the garden, but colchicums are getting their own area, and daffodils had their own area (which is getting smaller and smaller every time the next shiny thing catches my eye).

Now that I think about it, for the rest of the garden I guess I am a stick-it-anywhere-I find-a-space gardener. But what saves it from looking that way is the narrow range of colors I like. blues-lavender-purple with some strong reds and lots of yellow foliage... if that ever becomes trendy, I'm totally set.

Have a great holiday weekend! Stopped by the nursery already. The pot full of bolted lettuce by the porch steps which should have been pulled months ago is finally being replaced with some late season goodies. On the plus side the bolted lettuce has seeded out into the mulch and I should get a fall bonus from there as well!

^^ Oooh, nice haul!

I finally bought one of those dead-brown grasses. I think it's actually a sedge and to be honest I probably could have just sprayed roundup on something I already had for the same look, but there it was in my cart.

Also jumping in to my cart was a banana. A clearance sale on tropicals is a terrible thing, and more plants which need taking in for the winter is even worse!

"...and to be honest I probably could have just sprayed roundup on something I already had for the same look, but there it was in my cart."

LOL!!

I go for the messy look with a clean edge, too! Travel, hot weather and pregnancy has stopped me from being as active in the garden this summer as I like to be, and I lost my clean edges—it was amazing to me what a difference that made in how I felt about my yard/gardens! Last week I hired a pair of teenage brothers off of Nextdoor and they helped me wrangle all of the manicured bits back into shape. The beds are still full of weeds and there’s lots to do, but I feel good about it all again, lol!

And as for the “mixed” aspect, I had to tell my teenage helpers not to take anything out of the garden beds, because half of the brown plants are self-seeding annuals and biennials that are still spreading their seeds around! I’ll pull them and thrash them around a bit when I have time.

I very rarely find a garden that I don't like. The perfectly designed, the crammed in as you go.

Well put, as that describes my feeling as well

I add a hedge of beautiful trimmed boxwooods to my wild & free party of color that is everything else.

Katob, your garden is just wonderful! another thumbs up for the milkweed in the lawn!

The milkweed was very popular with the monarchs. I collected eggs every few days and was keeping them inside for a while until someone objected to raising caterpillars on the kitchen counter.

I had a little screen cage, so now it's out there over the milkweed. They fattened up on the plants, and now a dozen monarch chrysalis are hanging around inside.

So now the mixed garden bed has annuals, perennials, bulbs, shrubs, trees, and animal enclosures as well.

The gourds on the lawn are looking a little ratty now.