Must-have plants for carefree colour Take a bold and adventurous approach to ‘difficult’ colours for borders that shine

Take a bold and adventurous approach to ‘difficult’ colours for borders that shine all year round. Val Bourne has some good advice

Whenever I think about colour I think of the late, great Christopher Lloyd of Great Dixter: a man who embraced the rainbow and wasn’t a plant snob. He grew dahlias when they were wildly unfashionable, purely for the punch they gave to his late borders because he wanted to be excited by colour. His colourful shirts reflected his personality and his head gardener Fergus Garrett showed a picture of them piled up like a colourful leaning tower of Pisa, after his death in 2006. We should all adopt his carefree approach to colour and that includes orange, the bête noire of many a gardener. It’s the best enhancer of blues and purples and, when teamed with shocking pink, it radiates colour. Golden yellow, often considered a no-no too, creeps into the colour palette in late summer and autumn when warm-yellow daisies abound. Those brash yellows make a golden setting for a sultry cactus dahlia like ‘Chat Noir’, or a late royal blue aconitum such as ‘Arendsii’, or sultry eupatorium ‘Riesenschirm’.

Take full advantage of seasonal changes too, because the colour palette changes season by season. Spring is often a jumble of colour because there are plenty of subtle yellows and creams that you can weave through. High overhead summer sunlight bleaches colour out and the plethora of soft blues and pinks needs a stab of deep colour. As summer blends into autumn, pigment-packed southern hemisphere flowers such as salvias, dahlias, agapanthus and fuchsias add a jewel box quality. Then when winter descends, low sunlight picks up texture and deepens colour.

We should all adopt a carefree approach to colour

A sweep of soft summer pastels – blue eryngium, pink achillea and purple salvia – are boosted by the maroon globes of Allium sphaerocephalon

BRIGHT & BOLD Unleash your love of colour, planting orange dahlias with terracotta achillea, gold hemerocallis, red achillea and lupins, purple salvia and maroon astrantias. The flushed foliage belongs to Ricinus communis ‘Carmencita’