Flowering Plants for a Long, Narrow Flower Bed

Vines

• Vines that aren't bulky and will cling to the wall with a light support won't take up much space, and will visually help expand the flower bed. Morning glory, black-eyed Susan and sweet peas are appropriate annual flowers. Snail vine and clematis are perennial vines that will come back every year. Use supports such as netting, wire or a lightweight trellis for the vines to cling to.

Tall Flowers

• Flowers with a tall growth habit will lead the eye upward. Choose those that are tall, but not bulky. For example, hollyhocks grow up to 7 feet, but the plants are wide with large oval leaves---they'll overpower the flower bed. Better choices would be snapdragons, zinnias and stock. Snapdragons have spikes covered with many flowers. The leaves are small. The plant grows from 6 inches high, for the dwarf varieties, to 36 inches for the standard variety. Zinnias grow from 6 inches to 36 inches high as well. Flower size ranges from 1 inch across for Thumbelina to 4 inches across for the cactus flower variety. Stock is a spring flower growing to 36 inches high. It has rosette-shaped flowers about the size of a quarter, arranged on central spikes.

Feathery Foliage Flowers

• Flowers with feathery foliage don't take up as much space visually as broad-leafed bushes. The leaves also soften the edges of the bed, and make it seem wider than it is. Cosmos, a summer blooming flower, grows to 4 feet high with daisy-like flowers 2 to 3 inches across. Larkspur blooms in spring, growing from 3 to 4 feet high. The 1-inch wide flowers bloom on spikes.

Espaliered Fruit Trees

• Fruit trees flower in spring, and while you might think of them as tall wide plants, in fact they can be pruned and trimmed to as short as 2 feet, and as narrow as 1 foot. The trees bloom as usual and bear fruit. A support must be set up in the middle of the narrow bed or, if the bed is against a fence, the support is against the fence. Trim the tree so it has one central leader as the main trunk. Select two or three strong branches on either side of the trunk and train them to be perpendicular to the trunk by tying them to the support. Nearly all deciduous fruit trees will grow this way---apples work particularly well.