SPOTLIGHT ON... bold borders

There’s nothing like a touch of glamour for cheering up borders, and nothing does it quite so well as oriental poppies. One look at those huge flouncy silky-textured ballgown flowers puts you in mind of Hollywood in its heyday.

These eye-catching perennials are natural show-offs, with dense clumps of jagged, silken-haired foliage topped by exotic poppyheads measuring four to six inches across.

What’s more, they are timed just right to plug the “difficult” six-week gap that can denude borders between the last spring bulbs and the main flush of summer flowers.

There are dozens of varieties. By far the most fashionable is ‘Patty’s Plum’ whose flowers are a light satiny mauve. It’s not to everyone’s taste but I love it.

Its great asset was it went awfully well with the purples and blacks that were all the rage in perennial borders a few years ago. ‘Lauren’s Grape’ is another beauty that is slightly paler but just as desirable.

Traditional oriental poppies were always red; loud crimsons or bold vermilions that people nowadays can find a tad tricky to place in a sophisticated pastel border.

But if you have an evergreen background that shows red flowers at their best, old faithfuls such as ‘Goliath’, ‘Marcus Perry’ and the heavily fringed ‘Turkenlouis’ are real lookers, with contrasting centres of shaggy black anthers and black blotches at the base of the petals. They will do you proud. ‘Beauty Of Livermere’ is another popular red but lacks the black blotches that I think are a vital requirement.