Multi-tiered flower bed: interesting design options for a flower garden

The best decoration of the backyard territory is multi-tiered flower beds, fragrant with tart-sweet aromas, filling the space with bright colors, impressing with marvelous representatives of the flora. Unlike spontaneous thickets, ennobled single-level flower beds and alpine hills, they are not only successfully complement the landscape design of the site, but also make it possible to practically use the spaces in garden.

A multi-level flower bed is a beautiful garden composition, the size and design of which you can choose yourself

The multi-tiered flower beds are original in design, most often environmentally friendly, allowing you to harmoniously combine the most different varieties of flowers in a minimal area. And only large-scale labor costs at the design stage make individual homeowners think.

Why do we need multi-tiered flower beds and flower beds in landscape design?

Pansies, stunted geraniums, ampelous petunias, miniature asters... It can be very difficult to arrange all your favorite flowers on a small plot. Playing with levels in tiered flower beds gives you this opportunity and makes it easy to get away from the monotony and simplicity of the plain landscape. Such flower beds look advantageous in the middle of the lawn, evenly shading the bright colors of flowers with calm greens.

A multi-tiered flower bed can be made with your own hands without high costs

A variety of building materials are suitable for the manufacture of flower beds.

Any items that can be found in the household are used

Garden paths are decorated with narrow broaching structures. And high cascading flower beds with climbing plants are successfully placed around the gazebo, along fences and walls. Often, a two-tiered flower garden is arranged near the stairs in the yard. As a rule, the design of the flower beds follows the trajectory of the steps, and the plants rise to the top point or fall to the very bottom. The original version is a stepped shelf with spicy greens, which plays both a decorative and practical function.

A flower bed with stone borders on which spicy and medicinal herbs are grown

Tall strawberry bed made from old car tires

A natural stone flower bed looks great on the shore of the reservoir

A multi-level flower bed is found more and more often in our latitudes, but it is still a novelty. Many owners of country houses and summer cottages are afraid of such an element of landscape design. And the reason for this is a banal ignorance of the design rules:

1. Suitable background. You should not equip a decorative flower garden directly between the beds, near the barn, near the barn with the farm. 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.
2. Successful design. The lower tier should not be too wide. All subsequent ones, respectively, are even smaller. Also an important form! A large, round flower garden by the fence will look out of place. And a small arrangement in wooden containers in the middle of tall bushes runs the risk of remaining unnoticed.
3. Manufacturing material. Usually, they choose depending on the potential location, the desired plants, the budget for the arrangement and the landscape of a particular yard.
4. Choice of 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: you can fill the flower garden with monochrome varieties or pick up plants with different colors of flowers. 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.

Basic design options - shape and height of the cascades

The shape and height of the cascades in multi-tiered flower beds depends primarily on the material used in its arrangement. What can be used to make flower beds?

Planks and beams are available materials that are easily processed and allow the construction of structures of a wide variety of shapes

Galvanized metal is a more durable material than wood, but limited in terms of design and requires financial investment

A flower bed made of old bricks or blocks will last a long time, but its appearance will not be the best

Natural stone is one of the best materials for a flower bed, durable and attractive in itself

Sometimes the fantasy of gardeners suggests amazing and incredible options. So, as the material for the base are used:

• brick and stone;
• containers of various shapes and sizes;
• wooden boxes;
• ready-made forms of various configurations;
• border tape;
• stepped shelves;
• car tires;
• dilapidated furniture (chairs, armchairs, dressers);
• tree trunks;
• wooden pallets;
• dishes and household items (watering cans, teapots, barrels, metal basins, tarpaulin boots, etc.).

Using pallets, bricks, stones, ready-made containers, you can create tiered flower beds of a specific shape: square or rectangular, spiral or oval, lingering in the form of a snake, etc. Using other types of materials, it will be possible to equip a flower bed of an arbitrary shape, which in most cases looks even more winning.

You can create a multi-tiered effect using different-sized pots and other suitable containers.

Multilevel flower bed of boxes from an old chest of drawers

Flower bed-snail from gabions

The height of one step in a cascade may also differ. As a rule, the average indicator is from 15 cm to 0.5 m.But do not forget: too high steps will look rough and cumbersome, and too small will not allow organizing comfortable conditions for the growth and flowering of plants (soil, soil and etc.).

When choosing material for a flower garden, it is important to remember that the structure must successfully fit into the style of your site.

Bright multi-tiered flower bed made of car tires

What plants are suitable for a pyramid flower bed

The author of each multi-level flower garden independently chooses a successful combination of plants for his composition. It would seem that a pyramid flower bed and a three-tiered flower bed on a shelf will look completely similar to each other. differently, if you populate them with flowers that are radically different in variety, type and flowering period, color and etc.

Drought-resistant flowers are planted on the upper level of the flower bed, and the lower layer is filled with moisture-loving plants.

In the matter of competently filling a multi-tiered flower garden, they follow the rules regarding the organization of any flower bed in principle:

• A small structure should not be cluttered with a large variety of plants. The best option for a small flower garden is one type of flowers (for example, petunias), but different colors.
• The selected samples can be of different shades of the same color or two or three contrasting colors. But mixing too many color options creates a vinaigrette effect. It is better to shade purple with yellow, red with orange, pink with deep blue.
• Each tier should be filled with plants of one or two similar varieties. For the upper steps - ground cover, for the middle ones - small decorative ones, for the lower ones - higher and larger moisture-loving ones.
• It is better to settle the flower garden with plants following the stepwise principle: on the upper steps - decorative trifle and unpretentious in watering succulents, on medium - small flowering varieties, on the lower ones - the largest plants with a deep root system and bright wide leaves.
• When choosing flowers for composition, it is recommended to follow the principle of simultaneous flowering. A flowerbed looks sloppy, in which several tiers are blooming, and the rest are empty. If individual plants have survived, replace them in a timely manner with others that are suitable for the season.
• The multi-storey structure is a great opportunity for collectors to showcase their collection of carnations, succulents or, for example, ground cover phlox.
• Plants with purple and silver leaves are ideally combined at one stage. Such as: purple heuchera, "sheep's ears", etc. Most often, such duets decorate the flower garden throughout the season.

Tall flowerbed with ampelous petunias in wooden-framed containers

A flower bed, depending on your taste and desire, can be monochromatic, two-colored or variegated.

The unpretentious colors for the upper floors include marigolds, asters, nasturtium, and kosmeya. In spring, the season is opened with violets, forget-me-nots, primroses. In summer, geraniums, irises, and astilba bloom magnificently. Many amateur gardeners and professional breeders are happy to plant petunias, carnations, creeping junipers, heuchera, woolly purse.

Landscape designers recommend growing annual plants in tiered flower beds.

Photo examples of beautiful multi-tiered flower beds

If you decide to organize multi-tiered flower beds on your personal plot, photos of ready-made options will help you decide on the type of construction and its filling. So, for a yard in a traditional classical style, you can choose a stepped cascade made of brick or curb tape.

Red, facing or clinker bricks are best suited for a flower bed.

For a rustic personal plot or Provence style design, build a pyramid flower bed from wooden boxes or make a composition from an old bicycle, wicker wallets, hanging watering cans and etc.

Rustic flower bed made from old bicycle

For decorating a Provencal courtyard, flower beds made of old furniture are perfect.

Near a massive stone house, it would be appropriate to look at a flower garden made of rough stone or a building in the form of large degrees. In the high-tech courtyard, it is recommended to build a flowerbed of strict shapes from natural materials and populate it with decorative greenery and dim flowers.

High flower bed of stone with petunias and marigolds

If there is no attachment to a specific style, allow yourself an unusual quirky design. For example: a lying tree trunk on which forms of different sizes are installed, a well made of tires with compartments for settling, a pyramid of wooden boats, etc.

If there is no desire or time to invent and craft something, you can purchase a ready-made multi-level flower bed

Whichever style and shape you choose, a neat and well-groomed multi-tiered flower bed will look only when it is built taking into account important rules and planted according to the recommendations of experienced gardeners.

Video: DIY multi-tiered flower bed

Photo ideas for the design of tiered flower beds