How can I grow a succession of flowers in a 1m x 2.5m bed?
Tony, by email
AMATT SAYS Plant spring bulb displays of daffodils, muscari, scillas and tulips in aquatic baskets. Sink these into the border as they come into flower, then remove afterwards and allow to fade and die down out of the limelight.
You say you like wildflowers, so you could replace them with annual wildflowers sown in modules in autumn or bought as plug plants in spring. These can be allowed to set seed for subsequent years. You could also add longer-lasting perennial wildflowers, such as bugle (Ajuga reptans), stinking hellebores (Helleborus foetidus),
deadnettles (Lamium maculatum),
as well as biennials like forget-menots (Myosotis sylvatica) and foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea).
To avoid gaps while plants grow to flowering size, you could put potted plants in front of the bed, to be moved once the wildflowers come into bloom.
HUMAIRA SAYS To start the
Then I would suggest species tulips, which don’t need to be replanted every year. Tulipa acuminata has spidery red petals that reach up to the sky, while
T. humilis flowers early, in March or April, and is scented. You could follow these with fritillaries.
You could also sow a wildflower seed mix, but if your soil is fertile, it may encourage a single species to take over and out-compete the less vigorous ones. So instead you could opt for a perennial border using wilder varieties. Take a look at centaureas, which I saw growing in a lawn this week, as well as verbenas, pink Pimpinella major and various hardy geraniums. These should keep you going until the end of the summer.