Blockbuster bedding choices to brighten the summer
Blooms to brighten up your garden that won’t out stay their welcome
The annual garden bedding season is a bit like the season for summer Hollywood blockbusters. There are a lot to choose from. They all seem to arrive together – and if you blink they’re gone. Go to the garden centre once the sun shines and those trolley-loads of bedding plants quickly become scarce. Just like those Hollywood blockbusters, there is a lot of dross around, but equally, there are many engaging plants that are worth a look.
Alyssum, lobelia, dahlias, and marigolds make a good line-up of usual suspects. The slightly more challenging include bidens, brachycome and pelargoniums, while the exotic such as calceolaria or portulaca are well worth checking out.
As a general rule, bedding plants have a short but glorious life. It is also important to match the plants to your garden conditions: is it damp, sunny, windy, dry or shady? Then there is the height, width and colour scheme to be considered.
To make it all a bit easier to muddle through, I have selected my own favourite bedding blockbusters that I have compiled by toil and error over the last number of years.
1.
DIASCIA... I have ve just planted my pots ots with various varieties. It is one of the very best plants nts for summer colour in a dry garden. When it is in flower it really sizzles, and an associate of mine reckons that when in full bloom they can be seen up to 100m away. Diascia integerrima is a low-growing creeping plant reaching about 10cm high by about 20cm wide and is available in pink or orange from May to late September and is my current must-have plant. 2. FELICIA AMELLOIDES OR KINGFISHER DAISY is another plant originally from South Africa and is extremely eye catching wherever it is planted. They belong to the daisy family and could be grown as a house and conservatory plant. But it is without doubt best planted outdoors in summer, either in the ground or in containers such as hanging baskets and window boxes. Like many other South African plants, it revels in bright sunshine and the flowers often close up in dull weather. But don’t let that put you off as it is a striking sky-blue offset by sunny yellow flower heads that sit beautifully on stems well above the leaves.
3.
GAZANIAS are also from South Africa and need minimal soil nutrition so, as a result, can grow well in sandy soils. If you have a particularly under-nourished soil they will be quite happy, but a few doses of seaweed liquid feed should still be applied and certainly will not go amiss. Gazanias are mainly known for their yellow, orange to gold shades but it really is worth seeking out examples in creams, whites and dark reds. They all grow to about 30cm in height and width. The blooms are bright and appear like daisies and are well described as a sprawling type of plant. It should be noted that they are a bit shy on dull days as the flowers tend to close up, as they also do in the evening time.
4. IMPATIENS OR BUSY
LIZZIE is an excellent choice for a shady area where they tend not to dry out. A busy lizzie, if let dry out for too long, will result in dramatic failure. They are simple designs of nature whose stems are water ducts that distribute the water with great efficiency, working tirelessly until the first frost strikes them down in one fell swoop. Striking shades of reds, mauves, pink and whites make them a must for cheering up large spaces in the garden with some shade.
5.
VERBENAS have come into their own in recent times. They are also very attractive to bees, butterflies and other insects and can be planted to create colourful ground cover or grown in hanging baskets as a trailing plant. They can look effective trailing over a sunny, well-drained retaining wall. Verbenas are popular hanging basket plants that can either fill a basket on their own or be mixed with other hanging basket plants.
6.
NEMESIA are low-growing, dense, bushy plants with bright open-faced flowers in contrasting colours and grow best in full sun. Regular pinching out of growing tips will create a bushy happy plant. Nemesia like Diascia had their hey day, in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century, when the flowers were common in country gardens , but the commercial popularity of the marigold and petunia meant they became rather unfashionable. The new generation of nemesia are quite different visually from the older varieties mostly because the new forms offer strong colours and are easier to grow, performing well in containers.
7. TOBACCO PLANT, OR
NICOTIANA, is a plant that many gardeners enjoy growing for its fragrant perfume, that is at its most intense in the evening. Nicotiana is a member of the tobacco family and apparently has high concentrations of nicotine. This is an old-style bedding blockbuster and performs well in block planting format. This, in turn, maximises their unique fragrance so make sure to locate some under a window of your house. They grow to about 30cm and come in crimson, red and a lime-green white. Regular dead-heading will maximise their flowering from June to October.