PLANT A CHELSEA SHOW-STOPPER!
This colourful confection combines anchusa, alliums, dahlias and geums for a Gold-medal-winning display. Helen Billiald explains how to plant them
Great gardens are always brimming with joy, and it’s impossible to look at this Chelsea gold-medal-winning border without your heart skipping a beat. The Montessori Centenary Children’s Garden, designed by Jody Lidgard, was one of the most fun and talkedabout show gardens of 2019.
Using intensely saturated colours, including purple-blue anchusa, alliums, orange dahlias and geums has resulted in a richly embroidered planting scheme that would work in any sunny garden. These heavily pigmented colours glow even brighter against the sprinkling of white from ornamental cow parsley ‘Ravenswing’. By mingling the plants rather than grouping them stiffly into blocks of colour the overall planting remains graceful and light. ➤
In this planting scheme for a sunny or lightly shaded site, all the plants perform best on a fertile, well-drained soil (avoid winter wet). It’s worth improving the ground with plenty of well-rotted organic matter both to open up the structure and help soil hold onto moisture in summer.
The planting density seen at Chelsea is far greater than what’s required in a home garden, so leave room for things to grow. In the first year, consider sowing some airy annuals to fill gaps before the perennials really expand. Remember too when setting out pots to mingle plants for a more fluid planting.
Always soak containers beforehand, water in after planting and finish with a weed-free mulch. Remember to water if there’s a dry spell after planting.
1 Establish the geum, anchusa and anthriscus
Mid-spring is an ideal time to plant this trio of herbaceous perennials. Look out for young plants as both the anchusa and anthriscus have long tap roots that don’t like disturbance. Add extra compost to each planting hole to encourage the fertile, moist but well-drained soil they’re after. Deadhead the anchusa and geum after flowering to encourage a
second flush of flowers.
Leave the anthriscus flowers in place if you want this short-lived perennial to self-sow. If you’d rather not leave things to chance, collect seed to sow in a coldframe in autumn or early spring, then weed out all but the darkest seedlings to keep their dramatic stem colour.
Lift and divide established geums in autumn or early spring. In contrast, anchusas are best propagated by taking root cuttings in late autumn once the plant is dormant; insert 5cm (2in)-long root cuttings vertically in gritty compost and place in a cold frame.
2 Plant out the dahlia
Pick up dahlia tubers in spring from your local garden centre or order specific cultivars early from a specialist. Pot up tubers in the greenhouse, making sure plants remain frost-free as they grow. You can conjure extra plants by taking cuttings from newly emerged shoots. Or, pick up container-grown plants in May and June.
Plant out pot-grown dahlias in late May after all risk of frost. Enrich the planting hole and protect young plants against slug and snail damage. Stake with a single strong support and weave loops of twine around the plant as it grows. Make sure the support is shorter than the eventual plant height. Boost with a liquid high potash plant feed and deadhead every couple of days, or keep cutting for the house for the maximum display.
Once plants have been blackened by frost, dig up and store tubers in barely damp potting compost in a frost-free shed, or leave in the ground in sheltered parts of the
country, covered with a dry mulch.
Plant alliums from September to November, burying each bulb 15cm (6in) deep. Try to plant a generous number to be sure of a bold display. Avoid placing them too near the front of the border since their foliage can look raggedy as it dies back. They’ll come back year after year and if you don’t mulch too thickly they’ll self sow too. Allow the flowers to dry naturally on the plant until papery, then bring inside for flower arrangements or fabulous Christmas decorations. ✿
3 Finish with the alliums
Watering is key to keeping plants healthy and looking their best. However, carrying a watering can up and down the garden is exhausting! Not only that, water is the most precious of resources, and as hosepipe bans become increasingly common in British summertime, it’s important to manage freely available rainwater economically.
Fortunately, Bosch is on hand to help you create your perfect outdoor oasis, while conserving water at the same time.
Using Bosch’s new time-saving cordless watering system, the GardenPump 18, you can now easily water your garden using natural rainwater from your tank instead of chemically treated mains water. The unit can pump the water up to 25m (82ft) – perfect for most gardens – using any standard garden hose.