Bedding (horticulture)
In horticulture, the term bedding refers to flowering plants which can be planted in flower gardens and flower beds. These fast-growing plants in seasonal flower beds create colourful displays, during spring, summer, fall or winter, depending on the climate. Plants used for bedding are generally annuals, but biennials, tender perennials, and succulents are also used.
Flowering bedding plants are also grown in containers and pots positioned on patios, terraces, decks and other areas around houses. Large containers of bedding plants are used in public displays along city streets, plazas and hanging from city light posts.
Types of gardens with bedding plants
Formal, large gardens of bedding plants, as seen in parks and municipal displays, where whole flower beds are replanted two or three times a year, is a costly and labor-intensive process. Towns and cities are encouraged to produce impressive displays by campaigns such as "Britain in bloom" or "America in Bloom". Home gardeners usually have bedding plants in containers or in beds in the front yard or back yard.Spring, fall, winter gardens - temperatures are moderate to cool
Plants used for spring bedding are often biennials, or hardy, but short-lived, perennials. Spring-flowering bulbs such as tulips are often used, typically with forget-me-nots, wallflowers, winter pansies and polyanthus. Hardy annuals sown directly into the ground early in the season or transplanted after purchase at a local garden centre. Hardy biennial plants, or perennials treated as biennials, sown in one year to flower the next, and discarded after flowering. Planted in autumn to give a display until early spring, the plants used for winter bedding are mainly hardy perennials. Spring flowering bulbs are also planted in the fall. Winter-hardy ornamental vegetables such as cultivars of kale and cabbage with coloured or variegated foliage are increasingly common. Primula cultivars are commonly used, as are winter-flowering heathers and winter pansies.Summer gardens - temperatures are moderate to hot
Plants used for summer bedding are generally annuals or tender perennials. They are available in retail greenhouses, farmers' markets, nurseries, garden centres and hardware stores during spring and continuing into summer. Experienced gardeners keep an eye on the weather forecasts at that time of year and are on standby to protect their gardens overnight with horticultural fleece if frost threatens. Tender annual or perennial plants treated as half-hardy annuals, purchased as young plants, and hardened-off outdoors when all danger of frost has passed. Corms, rhizomes, bulbs and tubers of summer flowering plants, such as gladiolus, dahlia, canna, etc., are planted each year and lifted after the plant has died down and stored in winter, or discarded.Carpet bedding
Carpet bedding employs two or more contrasting plant cultivars with a neat, dwarf habit and distinct colouring to create geometric displays. It is often used to form such things as lettering, logos or trademarks, coats of arms, or floral clocks. Suitable plants are rosette-forming succulents such as Echeveria or fairly slow-growing or mat-forming foliage plants, such as colored-leaved Alternanthera cultivars, which are tolerant of clipping; such plants may also be used in three-dimensional sculptural forms or pseudo-topiary.William Morris was an early critic, writing in 1882 that it was: "an aberration of the human mind... when I think of it even when I am quite alone I blush with shame at the thought".
Larger tender houseplants or foliage plants may also be moved out from hobby greenhouses or indoors and planted out in borders for the warmer months, then returned to shelter for the winter.
The modern bedding plant industry breeds and produces plants with a neat, dwarf habit, which flower uniformly and reliably. They are bred primarily for use in large-scale bedding schemes where uniformity and predictability is of paramount importance, but this is often achieved by losing the plants' individual character, and has been criticized by such notable plantsmen as the late Christopher Lloyd, who championed an informal style of bedding. This position has not been in vain, in recent years, bedding plant retailers have happily engaged his informal philosophy with the use of "thrillers, fillers and spillers" for container gardens. A number of websites have lists of the plants that can be used to add excitement and diversity to containers of garden flowers.
Bedding plants
Many diverse plants are grown specifically to produce continuous colour throughout the seasons; plants may be discarded after flowering. There are many taxa and thousands of cultivars, so they will be divided into prefer cool temperatures or prefer warm temperatures. Cool temperate climates may only see cool temperature plants or see some warm temperature plants during the warmest weather. Warm temperate to tropical climates may only see warm temperature plants or see some cool temperature plants during the coolest part of the year.Prefer cooler temperatures (0°–20 °C, 32°–75 °F)
Prefer warmer temperatures (10°–35 °C, 50°–95 °F)
Bedding plant production
The production of bedding plants has changed dramatically over the last 50 years. In the U.S. in 1970, cut flowers were the top sellers, by far. Bedding plant production was increasing, but slowly. As cut flower production moved off-shore, greenhouse operators began to expand into bedding plant production. It seemed bedding plants might, also, move off-shore, but the plant quarantine standards prevented plants in soil from being shipped into the U.S. Local production of bedding plants was protected in the U.S. by important plant quarantine standards that protected all of U.S. agriculture. The quarantine laws helped, but the U.S. consumer wanted bedding plants, so production increased every year. Relatively inexpensive, seasonal greenhouses with a roof of polyethylene film were developed and optimized in the 1960s and 1970s and helped the business as well. In 2022, the wholesale value of bedding plants in the U.S. was nearly US$ 2.5 Billion.The basic science for controlled-environment agriculture was started at universities and in industry in the Netherlands, the U.K., Germany, Denmark, etc. for vegetable, cut flower and potted flowering plants in the 1970s and 1980s. U.S. universities and industry applied the same science to bedding plants and potted flowering plants at the same time. This research developed environmental control practices, structures and equipment to optimize bedding plant production over the last 50 years. Plant breeders and plant collectors added new taxa annually to foster industry growth.