Pretty in pink
POP OF THE SEASON’S HOTTEST COLOUR
MODERN garden designs tend to display chic and tasteful colour palettes in purple, blue and cream among sturdy evergreen shrubs and beautiful hedges. The archetypal white garden is still guaranteed for style and class too.
The Chelsea Flower Show has been graced for many years with deep purples such as alliums, Verbena bonariensis and irises with salvias, lupins and delphiniums in blue.
However there’s another colour that is on trend. Looking through the fantastic plant catalogues that find their way into my design studio, there are many beautiful flowering plants available in pink that directly reflect the market demand. Some gardeners are scared of it. We shouldn’t be.
If you are tempted to inject a shot of pink into your garden, there are definitely a few musthaves that will make a statement.
Cirsium rivulare ‘Atropurpureum’ is far from being blush pink – this deep green foliage bears upright flowering stems with deep pink thistles that will dramatise planting all through the summer months.
It has become deservedly fashionable and will look handsome in any garden from contemporary to meadow, spreading happily in sunny places as well as tolerating drier parts.
For a strong rosy pink, Aquilegia vulgaris var. stellata ‘Rose Barlow’ is a double flower amid distinctive feathery foliage that will complement whites and blues.
Dicentras offer shape and form with delicately lacy leaves and a rounded habit and are beautiful spring border flowers – the heartshaped flowers of Dicentra spectabilis drip off its arching stems in a mid pink and it’s known as bleeding heart.
A larger perennial, it will look great at the back of a border, but it works just as well towards the front as its foliage is light and arching – so won’t overwhelm a scheme.
Paeonies are a must-have and look great in any colour or shade, mainly due to their magnificent flower forms. Paeonia lactiflora ‘Sarah Bernhardt’ bears enormous double blooms in pale pink, which are wonderfully fragrant.
Paeonies are perfect focal plants and should be positioned as such, and as with the dicentras, have wonderful foliage too.
Pink roses bring romance into the garden and Rosa ‘Generous Gardener’ is the most elegant shade of pale dusky pink. For an amazing climber, Rosa ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’ has tightly bound almost triple flowers that resemble Ranunculus blooms, they hang heavily above in a delicate pink.
And dianthus, known as pinks, are definitely back in vogue, the most popular cultivars in contemporary garden settings being in darker shades of pink. They are used in schemes as accent sprinkles of unexpected colour rather than the blush pink carnations that ran along the length of the garden path in the 1970s.
Dianthus gratianopolitanus ‘Firewitch’ is a good spreading type that creates a strong contrast with other herbaceous planting, its flowers are fragrant a dark cerise pink.
Gaura lindheimeri ‘Siskiyou Pink’ is another wonderful spreading plant, but with a very different look. Its long grass-like leaves and spindly stems sway in the wind and are joined by small starshaped pink flowers like butterflies. Gaura fills a border beautifully at ground level like a mini meadow of colour and will flower on right into autumn.
For completely different ground cover, Bergenia ‘Abendglut’ has vivid magenta flowers and the large leathery leaves that look great all year round.
They have also made a comeback into many gardens, especially contemporary ones, and are incredibly low maintenance and reliable for sunny or shady areas.
Anemone x hybrida ‘September Charm’ is fabulous for masses of late-summer flowers amid long wiry stems that start from deep crimson buds and open up into rosy pink blooms.
They are easy to grow and will thrive in shadier areas towards the back of the border, spreading effortlessly into awkward corners of the garden.
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