Floral gap fillers for summer displays
As summer dawns you start to see how your planting plans are working out. Not all may be performing to plan, with gap fillers needed to rescue the shortfall! Thankfully, there’s plenty of choice on offer, with fast-growing, long-flowering plants that can be slipped into spaces of all sizes, or mixed together in riotous abandon for a larger spot or grouped together in a potted display.
It’s too late to sow cosmos and zinnia from seed now but plants are readily available from garden centres and online, along with ready potted gaura and dahlia tubers. There’s also usually enough colour choice to theme a display, grouping demure or pastel pink and red shades with whites, or going for a sensation by combining vibrant oranges, scarlets and yellows. There will also be differences in the relative height and spread of varieties, so check first before buying – nothing worse than having compact growers that won’t overtop neighbours, or have tall, spindly varieties that flop about in pots and break in the wind.
If you select single-flowered varieties of cosmos, dahlia and zinnia, you’ll also support pollinators into late summer and autumn, when food for these insects becomes scarcer.
As flowers fade, pick or remove spent blooms to encourage others to form. Many dahlias have bronze or dark purple to black foliage, which acts as a dramatic contrast to the flowers and surrounding plants. If lower leaves on dahlias are too expansive, cut the foliage back to fit it into the space.
The willowy shoots of gaura are ideal for using in narrower gaps and will create clouds of dancing pink and/or white blooms.