How to Trail Perennial Flowers
Create a dramatic effect on banks and slopes without having to repeat the work year after year by creating trailing perennial flowers. By choosing the right plants and the right locations you can design these somewhat hard-to-reach areas to be the stars of your landscape design. Here are a few tips that will help you to trail perennial flowers.
- Visit your local nursery and ask for suggestions on the perennial flowers that do best in your area. Some of the more common ones that are used for trailing are ground morning glory, creeping rosemary, creeping baby's breath, cinquefoil, snow-in-summer, Carpathian bell-flower and evergreen candy-tuft. There are others that will also do well in most locations.
- Ride through and look at the plants that are doing well in your neighbors yards and in the surrounding landscapes. Some of your neighbors may even be willing to share plants when they separate their plants in the spring. This will help to get you started and will reduce the cost.
- Choose your location. Remember that these plants are designed to grow downward. They should be planted at the top of the hill or the top of the retaining walls. They also do well around the rims of large pots. To speed up the process of covering a large slope or area, plant numerous plants at various levels and locations.
- Consider planting in a checkerboard pattern to fill in your area quicker. Choose your plants based on the final color arrangement that you are looking to achieve.
- Loosen and prepare your soil prior to planting your flowers. Work the soil in the spring when it is more easily cultivated. Add mulch to help prevent soil erosion and to conserve water.
- Dig up and divide your plants every couple of seasons. This is best done soon after the plants appear in the spring. Once you divide the root and move it to the new location it will continue to rapidly spread to help to cover the hillside or slope that it is being planted on.