Hints and Tips

Summer Bedding Plants

With so many different plants to choose from this can be a quite a challenging task for any gardener, trying to get the right mix of colour, as well as trying to fit in to the equation that new and exciting plant that you’ve never grown before. Then there’s the usual difficult decision, formal or informal planting. Which ever one you choose you cannot beat the versatility of the bedding plant with almost every colour and flower shape available the question is not which one to use but how many varieties to use and in which combination to use them.

Whether you decide on a formal display with their blocks of colour and their uniformed straight lines, or my personal favourite, the informal jungle, high in colour and a total mismatch of plants with hidden treasures just waiting to be found. It’s up to you. Just remember when using bedding you don’t need a huge amount of room. You can create a fantastic display in an area of just 0.9metres by 1.2 metres (or 3ft by 4ft in old money). Use some old favourites like busy lizzies, begonias and geraniums, but remember the key to a good display is height. In the formal setting why not have a nice obelisk in the centre with some sweet peas tangling their way up to the top or the brilliant climbing Fuchsia Lady Boothby. Height in the informal style is down to feature plants like red canna lillies under planted with lemon yellow bidens or the odd sunflower towering over the back of the border. One of the best sunflowers, in my opinion, is sunflower claret with its dark chocolate brown heads under planted with a vibrant pink or white cosmos.

One of my favourite formal bedding plants are African Marigolds standing guard over that well kept neat border sporting impressive yellow, white or red hats. For that informal jungle, nasturtiums are ideal. Their bright peppery tasting edible blooms are also perfect for dressing up that summer salad. Fragrance is also not hard to come by in the bedding range, why not plant a tub of ten week stocks or nicotiana and place on the patio to give a nice sweet smell whilst enjoying the evening sun. No garden would be without a hanging basket or two with trailing surfinias and millionbells mingling with lobelia, creating a waterfall of colour.

For a bit of fun, why not create your own bit of art in your back garden by recreating a picture of a sunset using different shades of lobelia for the sea and orange or yellow marigolds for the sun. Why not get the kids involved aswell by creating a simple smiley face using a circle of yellow marigolds for the face and dark leafed begonias for the eyes, nose and mouth. Once again anything is possible with bedding plants