Q What can I plant in my north-east facing raised bed, 2.5m x 2.5m, a mile from the coast?
Karen Pyle, Cornwall
A
MATT SAYS You say you love green, white, cream and pink, so I have some colourful suggestions for you. Firstly, every seaside garden needs a New Zealand flax (Phormium), especially in a Cornish climate. Try ‘Tricolor’ for its rededged sword-like leaves and spikes of yellow-green flowers, ‘Pink Stripe’ for its olive-green leaves with pink margins, or ‘Maori Queen’ with rose-pink and cream stripes.
To create shelter, add an informal hedge of escallonia, such as ‘Iveyi’ with white fragrant flowers from mid-summer to early autumn, Griselinia littoralis ‘Variegata’ with thick apple-green, white-edged leaves or Olearia haastii with clusters of white daisy flowers. This shelter would let you grow the colourful-leaved evergreen shrub coprosma – ‘Rainbow Surprise’ has glossy leaves in shades of lime, yellow, cream, pink and red.