We’ve certainly had a few days of beautiful sunny weather over the past week and it’s got us thinking about starting to get the garden ready for summer. With everything going on in the world at the moment, it also looks like people will be spending more time in their gardens, so it’s a great time to make sure that your garden is a place to enjoy for the coming months.
You may be a seasoned gardener and be used to choosing plants which look fantastic in different spots in your garden, or like many we suspect, you may visit the garden centre, and pick up plants and flowers which you “think” could work in the garden, without really being sure whether they will, what other plants they mix well with, or what growing conditions they need.
It can be a minefield knowing what plants are going to work around the borders of your garden, so here are some suggestions of plants for lovely mixed sunny borders in the gardens of your property.
- Ceanothus are known and grown for their impressive flowering display. Whether growing a free-standing or a wall-trained shrub, a deciduous or an evergreen
- Choisya are evergreen shrubs with aromatic, palmately divided leaves and fragrant star-shaped white flowers. Choisya ternate is a rounded, medium-sized bushy evergreen shrub, with dark, glossy green leaves divided into three broad leaflets.
- Cistus are evergreen, or semi-evergreen and flower well for most of the summer and look very attractive in the border. They are maintenance free and will survive being pruned into the old wood.
- More examples of coloured Cistus. Cistus are best pruned lightly after flowering to keep into shape
- Coreopsis may be just what you need if you’re looking for lasting summer colour after most perennial flowers fade from the garden.
- Deutzia In late spring and early summer, this handsome deciduous shrub really packs a punch, as that is when the leafy stems are topped with generous clusters of small white flowers. Forming a low, spreading mound, it is relatively compact but wonderfully showy – so ideal for smaller gardens.
- Erysimum is a bushy evergreen perennial to 75cm, with narrow, dark grey-green leaves and erect racemes of rich mauve flowers 2cm in width.
- Escallonia are evergreen shrubs with glossy, leathery, toothed leaves, sometimes sticky, and 5-petalled white, pink or red flowers in terminal racemes or panicles in summer and early autumn.
- Genus Santolina are aromatic, dwarf evergreen shrubs with entire or pinnately dissected leaves and dense, button-like flower-heads in summer. Its a dwarf evergreen shrub with narrow, silvery-woolly, much dissected leaves and long-stalked, button-like bright yellow flowerheads 2cm in width.
- Hebes are a versatile garden plant, offering bright foliage colours in the winter and sparkling flowers through summer into the autumn.
- Heleniums come in a range of colours from deep red to pale yellow including blends, stripes and bands of colour. Heights vary from 1ft (30cm) to more than 7ft (210cm). It is possible to have Heleniums in full bloom from late June past the end of October by judicious choice of variety and deadheading.
- Heuchera make a low, flattened mounds of foliage and excellent for filling in gaps between taller plants, heucheras provide colour virtually year round. They spread slowly, so are best in groups for maximum impact – different varieties will create a patchwork effect.
- Lavandula is Long-lived and hardy border plants include cultivars of the English lavender Lavandula angustifolia and Lavandula intermedia…Other lavenders, including French lavender (Lavandula Stoechas), are slightly less hardy and can be short-lived so need replacing every few years.
- Nepeta is an aromatic plant with flowers in along their stems. The leaves are often felted and soft. Most love sun and tolerate drought. All are hardy, but dislike waterlogged ground in winter.
- Penstemons vary, with some being suited to the alpine garden while the majority are at home in the heart of a herbaceous border. Border penstemons are praised for their tubular late summer flowers in an array of dramatic colour.
- In early summer, philadelphus offer a blousy backdrop to roses and pretty herbaceous plantings with their foaming white flowers and heavy scent
- Potentilla can be herbaceous perennials, deciduous shrubs, or annuals, with palmately or pinnately divided leaves and solitary or clustered, saucer-shaped, 5-petalled flowers appearing over a long period.
- Potentilla can be herbaceous perennials, deciduous shrubs, or annuals, with palmately or pinnately divided leaves and solitary or clustered, saucer-shaped, 5-petalled flowers appearing over a long period.
- Rudbeckias are characterised by their colourful daisy-like flowers surrounding a prominent conical disk. They can be annuals, biennials or herbaceous perennials, the annuals grown as half-hardy annuals, sown indoors in warmth. The annual varieties may survive from year to year if left in the garden, but flowering may be reduced in subsequent years.
- Sedum is a perennial plant with thick, succulent leaves, fleshy stems, and clusters of star-shaped flowers.
- A beautiful late spring /early summer flowering shrub, Spiraea is very hardy and suitable to grow in most locations, although for the showiest flowers Spiraea is best grown in full sun.
So there you have it, a few suggestions for you. Hopefully these should be common plants which are available from your local Garden Centre or to purchase online.
If you would like any help or advice on what to plant in your garden, or you would like a trusted company to help landscape or carry out maintenance in your garden for you, then why not get in touch, as we’re always happy to help. Give us a call on 01438 728176.
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