Last month we talked about planting our tubs for summer colour with bedding plants. This month let’s look at a few special plants that can decorate the patio all Summer and into Autumn. Some will flower until late November providing colour for seven months of the year.
Busy Lizzies are back with the new mildew resistant varieties. They perform very well in tubs and hanging baskets without the need to continuously remove spent flowers. Coral pink Beacon Lipstick and Imara, pale pink, will give outstanding displays in hanging baskets when covered in masses of flowers all season.
Begonia Boliviensis Bossa Nova is a lovely semi pendular variety with beautiful dark foliage. It grows to form a neat brightly coloured mound of single flowers like a ray of sunshine from a hanging basket in lemon yellow or orange red varieties. It requires watering less often than other hanging basket plants.
Petunias are well known for the continuous flowering display they give all summer and into autumn until the frosts arrive in November. Trailing Petunia Surfinia will trail down by one metre from the basket if kept watered and fed with a liquid plant food. There are now many vibrant colours to choose from like Petunia Surfina Blue Lagoon with rich purple blue and cream white stripes and Petunia Amore Queen of Hearts stunningly yellow and red with rosy-red hearts on each flower.
Calibrachoa, Million Bells, produces a profusion of small Petunia like flowers all Summer and Autumn. C. Star Fire Rose is strawberry pink, C. Blue Star, purple with a white edge, C. Pink Flamingo is yellow splashed pink and C. Coral Kiss is pink yellow and perfumed.
Osteospermums are tender perennial plants that are grown in the UK as summer bedding plants like geraniums and fuchsias. If you can protect them over winter, you can propagate the following spring from cuttings. O. Rioja Red is compact and smothered in deep red daisy flowers from late spring to the first frosts in the autumn. Keep removing fading flowers to ensure continuous flowering. It also looks good in sunny herbaceous borders. O. Sunset yellow and orange, O. Blue Sunrise yellow and pearly pink, are two single daisy varieties whereas O. Berry White and O. White Lemon have double flowers.
Nemesia Lady Penelope is a stunning compact plant with white yellow and dark pink perfumed flowers for tubs on a sunny patio or front of the border. Plant in good compost and this Nemesia will flower all summer into the autumn. With the recent selective breeding of Nemesias there are now many lovely varieties. N. Sapphire is cobalt blue with a white centre, N. Wisley Vanilla is creamy white and scented while N. Lady Penelope is white, yellow and dark pink. If you haven’t grown these bedding plants, I recommend you give them a try.
Cosmas Casanova is a new group of Cosmos. They are compact much branching plants which work better in bedding schemes than earlier varieties. The foliage is very attractive, fern like and bright green. The flowers are perfect single daisies in white, pink, red and violet all summer. Remove the flowers as they fade to keep the fresh flowers coming by cutting back to the first leaf.
Verbenas are easy to grow low maintenance trailing plants for hanging baskets. V. Apple Green has delicate pale apple green flowers. V. Blue Twister have distinctive purply blue and white and V. Red Twister red and white star like flowers all Summer until the frosts in November.
I am really looking forward to trying some of these exciting new varieties this summer and I hope you will too.
Summer Temperatures entice us to spend time outdoors so we then become more aware of our surroundings and for the lucky ones our first encounter is our own garden. We see the colour and beauty but our other senses are also stimulated with fragrance, touch and sound helping us to feel relaxed and happy. Today our busy lives demand we take some time out so here are a few plants to help achieve a garden Shangri La.
Annual climbers are exotic colourful plants that grow quickly to transform a new garden, hide unsightly areas or add extra colour to existing fences, arches, pergolas or obelisks all in one summer. They have the capacity to germinate, grow vigorously, flower generously and set seed within a few months.
Last month we talked about planting our tubs for summer colour with bedding plants. This month let’s look at a few special plants that can decorate the patio all Summer and into Autumn. Some will flower until late November providing colour for seven months of the year.
