Feeling The Colour!
April is my favourite time of year; it’s my birth month and a time of renewal and optimism. I love walking out into my garden every morning to look for new shoots, which are charging out of the soil daily. I can start to picture how the borders will look in a couple of months, as the gaps fill up with forgotten perennials, welcomed back with open arms.
Everything is so green, verdant and lush. The emphasis is on ground cover right now; the understory reigns supreme before the tree canopy casts its shadows. Dainty blue flowers of brunnera, the perennial forget-me-not, mingle with corals, pinks and lilacs of pulmonaria, providing vital pollen and nectar for busy bees. Low, mound forming, variegated grasses, from vibrant carex Evergold to cool carex Everest, these evergreen sedges will soften your border edges. Strappy leaves, marbled leaves, feathery leaves; mix it up to add rhythm to your planting.
I’m in the process of transforming my Catio container displays from spring to summer. As the narcissi and violas go over, I’ve been swapping them for summer bedding. Such a wonderful old-fashioned phrase, that! It reminds me of formal planting schemes in parks and public gardens, popular since Victorian times, a far cry from my riotous displays.
This summer I’ve chosen petchoas - a hybrid combination of petunias and calibrachoas – and begonias. The Non-Stop Series, glossy, near black leaves with brash orange or red flowers, and the gentler, pastel, tumbling flowers of the Starshine Series.
My rules?
· Only one flower type per container: more impact, less fussy.
· Nothing poisonous to cats, homework required.
· Cool colours at the shady end of the Catio, with ferns.
· Hot colours at the sunny end, a seated suntrap.
Do I break my rules? Yes, regularly. As the season progresses, I will find room for ipomoea Sweet Caroline Collection – the sweet potato vine - and coleus Campfire; foliage plants with a touch of the exotic to complement the flashy cannas. But right now, I’m having to exercise patience! They will remain in the unheated greenhouse until early May, when all risk of frosts has passed, here in London.
So, for now, I’m going to enjoy the spring flowers. I shall listen to the birds and the bees and enjoy the sun on my face. And the lifted narcissi? They are being rehomed in a client’s new garden.
Love, Caroline x