White PURE ELEGANCE
Pure white flowers work best in spring and many have fresh green foliage. Double-flowered white wood anemone, A. nemorosa ‘Vestal’, is neatly formed with flowers that can persist until mid-May. Use it in woodland gardens with hellebores and ferns. Follow on with wide-winged, white Aquilegia vulgaris ‘Munstead White’, a seed strain that comes true to type, and tall white campion Silene fimbriata. In a wilder setting, add lily of the valley (Convallaria majalis) too, which will roam, but can also be grown in a large pot. Light up shadier corners from July until late autumn with pearly white open-flowered clematis ‘Huldine’ softened by a green boss of stamens. July-flowering rambling rose ‘Sander’s White’ also tolerates some shade. Once summer arrives, white flowers need a hint of pink or champagne to avoid looking glacial. Rose ‘Champagne Moment’, an extremely healthy rose, has clusters of warm-white flowers. Use with perennial verbascum, V. chaixii ‘Album’, because each tiny white flower has a damson stain around its orange stamens. Looking at the detail in every flower is the best indicator of what goes with what. The white form of musk mallow (Malva moschata alba) peaks in August and bees love its pink-veined white flowers. I couldn’t be without the single white Japanese Anemone hybrida ‘Honorine Jobert’ in September. Its green middle and ring of golden stamens soften this airy plant. It has a creeping habit, so if plants are happy, they will travel.