Garden design, garden planning, garden layout, planting plants and planting schemes

Colourful Borders – Planning for a riot

Posted on March 28th, 2009

If you start with a good plan, it is possible without much effort, to fill your garden with exciting and riotous colour from spring right through until the year’s end.

Most people agree that early flowering bulbs have a vital role in providing colour and cheer in early spring gardens, so much so that it is hard to imagine a spring garden without bulbs? But bulb planting although for many associated with springtime is more than a single season option to providing colour. With only a small degree of planning, it is possible to have a continuous and riotous display of colour through summer starting with Alliums in May and June, Lilies in July, Dahlias and Cannas in August and Nerines from September onwards.

Late spring is the ideal time to complete the groundwork and most summer flowering bulbs are planted now. There is so much choice now available from the local Garden Centres, that any colour combination is possible. Subtle soft colour shades mixed with striking feathery ornamental grasses and sedges makes for stunning compositions.

For a softer, paler perhaps white summer display one could consider a scheme including Allium tuberosum, mixed with white irises and countless options on white lilies. The outstanding flowers of Agapanthus ‘Glacier stream’ (better planted in a container in the border in order to restrict root and foliage growth and generate better blooms). For gardeners who prefer to add drama to a dappled area, it would be very difficult to beat the outstanding architectural showstoppers: Allium hollandicum ‘Purple Sensation’ or Allium christophii, Allium schubertii and of course the quintessential King of Alliums Allium giganteum.

When it comes to planning colour, fortune favours the brave.