Readers’ gardens
Taking note of my surprise companions!
Plants on their own can be striking but it’s often when they're combined with others that they become truly sensational. I’ve been making a note of the best combinations in the garden, whether they were down to planning or Mother Nature!
I really like the purple foxgloves, Digitalis purpurea, which sprang up beside the white frills of peony ‘Duchesse de Nemours’ and pink rose ‘Wildeve’. The fragrances of the rose and peony are addictive!
Lining up the pots of lemon, orange and pink lilies in front of a screen of potted bamboos has created an exotic and effective combination. Also, leaving the pink Geranium oxonianum ‘Wargrave Pink’, Lysimachia punctata (yellow loosestrife) and purple Nepeta faassenii to grow into each other in the border – with the surprise addition of white campanulas and a stray orange lily – has made for a lovely effect.
The good thing about getting behind with the weeding is that you can identify unexpected seedlings to keep. Because of this, we have several pale pink poppies, antirrhinums, the cheerful lime-green leaves and white daisies of feverfew, Californian poppies and joyous deep pink hollyhocks at the front of the border. Honesty appears in our borders like a welcome gift and its young seed pods glow a fresh green and purple in the evening sun. Seeing the impact of the hanging baskets with pots of red impatiens by the front door made me change all the bedding at the front of the house from multi-coloured to red. I’m very pleased with the dramatic effect of this uniformity of colour – the red and green scheme looks great against the house brickwork and I got six large busy Lizzies for £2 at the garden centre!
At the allotment, deliberately cramming a mixture of crops in the raised beds has produced a larger harvest than ever. This month I’ve been picking mostly salad, strawberries, spinach and beetroot.