How to Landscape Plant Island Borders

Plant rapidly spreading, creeping specimens if you don’t mind the maintenance. Rapid growers such as creeping sedums swath the entire bed as long as they are not allowed to invade space belonging to other plants. Silver mound Artemisia is a mounding plant with attractive, silvery foliage that remains under control with a couple of trims each year.

Plant slower-growing specimens in the island border, such as portulaca with delicate succulent foliage and a hue of flowering colors. Creeping herbs, such as varieties of thyme, have delicate summer flowers and provide fragrance, especially when stepped on as they grow around path pavers.

Add a focal point, plant a shrub or small tree in the middle of the island bed, and then border it with matching grasses. Many ornamental grasses have clumping forms and remain in the area where they are planted with occasional trimming and division. Liriope in solid or variegated colors needs a yearly trim and division every few years.

Grow plants with a variety bloom times for perpetual flowering. Low growing crocus and pansies bloom as early as late winter, while sedums bloom in late summer and remain attractive as the flowers dry. Consider shading from taller plants and trees before choosing border plants and pick plants suited to the site.

Plant groupings sparsely to allow room for growth to mature size.