Winter displays

Fill window boxes, containers and hanging baskets with these cheering blooms, and you’ll transform your patio, entrances and windowsills for months on end. Inexpensive favourites, pansies and viola have a big advantage in that they flower reliably in winter’s low sunlight and will bounce back after bad weather. Just follow our step-by-step guide to creating your winter container:

1 Pick your pansy or viola and one other flowering bulb such as cyclamen or snowdrops.

2 Team it with one of the following evergreens: skimmia, box, bay or the red-berried Gaultheria procumbens.

3 Jazz things up with a foliage plant such as heuchera or an ornamental cabbage. 4 Winter-flowering heathers will make a lovely fragrant addition.

Viola x wittrockiana pansy in bloom

Plant up a trough container with pansies along with cyclamen and heather for a bold winter display that will withstand the cold weather