A colourful garden will brighten your day, even when it’s raining. And, to create an outdoor space that’s full of colour for as long as possible, you’ll need a wide range of plants. Broaden your horizons by adding different groups of flowering plants for a more sustained and varied show of colour – it also pays to pick plants that naturally flower for a long time. You’ll find plenty of plants that fit this bill perfectly at B&Q, so you can ensure your garden is crammed with colour this summer and beyond. Here’s what you should be looking out for...
The range of colours and patterns that summer bulbs can bring to the garden is fantastic and is like the icing on the cake when your garden is already looking lush and abundant. For extra-loud colour, ‘Dinner Plate Mixed’ dahlias are just the ticket, with double flowers in shades of purple, orange, yellow and pink. If you pot them up now and (after the risk of frost) plant them out in a warm, sunny place that’s sheltered from strong winds, they will flower from midsummer to the end of autumn.
Or, to add a splash of colour reminiscent of a classic cottage garden, gladioli are a great pick and B&Q’s Gladioli Classic Mix will produce flowers all summer and into autumn. The flower spikes reach up to 1m tall and work well planted direct into gaps in the garden in spring. Be sure to mix a handful of grit into each hole to ensure good drainage.
Shrubs can last for years and are investments for the garden, so it pays to choose ones that flower for a long time. An evergreen like Hebe ‘Heartbreaker’ is a standout plant all year. It has bee-friendly mauve flowers in the summer and attractive green and cream variegated leaves that develop a warm pink flush in the winter. For long-term colour in containers, hardy fuchsias are a win-win! Once they start flowering in early summer, they keep going until the first frost. ‘Tom Thumb’ grows to just 60cm tall and shows off small red and mauve flowers in summer and autumn.
Like all hardy fuchsias, the best place to plant them is in dappled sun and in soil that drains well. In pots, grow in a multi-purpose compost such as B&Q’s Good Home Peat-Free Multi-Purpose Compost. Feed regularly in the growing season and refresh the compost once a year to keep your shrub happy.
Alpines are a must-have in spring because they bring masses of flowers in a small space. They’re perfect for perking up gaps in containers, border edges and around the base of shrubs. For lots of cheerful blue flowers all spring, Aubrieta ‘Kitte Blue’ is ideal. As with all alpines, you’ll want to put it in a partly sunny, free-draining spot (it’s best to avoid very wet and very hot places).
Other free-flowering choices include the superb pollinator plant Sedum reflexum. It will cover the ground with delicate star-shaped flower clusters in summer. Alternatively, Saxifraga ‘Pixie Rose’ has an abundance of pink flowers into May.
As spring moves to summer, most perennial plants start to flower and, while there’s a world of choice, some only have a short flowering period. But some just keep going! The wallflower Erysium ‘Bowles’s Mauve’ flowers in May and in a mild year won’t stop until Christmas, so long as you keep snipping off spent flower stalks. It grows to about 80cm tall. For something shorter with cheerful flowers all summer and into autumn, geraniums won’t let you down. The variety ‘Rozanne’ covers the ground quickly and produces purply-blue blooms. Vibrant ‘West Country’ lupins are great for borders – just deadhead after flowering and protect from frost by covering the crown of the plant.
Flowers don’t have to be the only source of colour in your garden. If you take a look at B&Q’s wide range of plants, you’ll discover some have tremendous-coloured leaves that will help create a multi-coloured backdrop for some of your favourite blooms. Heucheras provide a tapestry of colour with their bold, intriguing leaves. ‘Marmalade’ gives a splash of orangey/yellow, while ‘Black Pearl’ adds dramatic dark shades that will make pink and white flowers stand out well around it. Grow heucheras in full sun for the best show of colour, but if you’re growing them in pots, watch out for the pest vine weevil, which can be controlled by introducing a natural predator.
Also keep an eye out for the showstopping Nandina ‘Gulf Stream’, a super shrub (1.2m tall) with exciting leaf colour – it has bronzey-orange new growth in spring and red-orange foliage in autumn – and the evergreen Photinia ‘Red Robin’, which will grow well in all soils except very boggy ones. This gorgeous shrub will help light up your garden with strawberry red new shoots in spring and summer, just make sure to clip it back in the spring.
Don’t forget that green is still a colour! For an instant, permanent injection of lush greenery that will last throughout the year, mature topiary will transform the look of the garden in winter and add structure. Spirals and pyramids are great as a centrepiece, and a brilliant way to add colour and interest to the garden whatever the time of year.
Let your garden bloom with B&Q
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