Maximise colour in your garden into autumn
It is nearly mid-June and by now most shrubs have flowered. There are many that flower later, but to maximise colour in your garden from mid-summer into autumn, plant perennials.
The majority of perennials are easy to grow, require little maintenance, will flower for months, come in all sizes and in every shade of colour imaginable.
They will die down at the end of the year and all you do is remove the old foliage and they will come back bigger and better next year.
You can even dig them up, divide them and make more plants, and nearly all can be bought for €7 or €8, so you can’t go wrong.
Make the best of them, because they are such a diverse group of plants, you need to put a bit of thought in to your choices.
Consider flowering time, height, colour, size and shape of foliage, aspect, soil type, overall style of garden, and of course the neighbours (what I mean is, what plant is going to be planted beside your choice).
That all sounds complicated – let’s simplify it. Most herbaceous plants will thrive in any reasonable soil and most will appreciate a bit of homemade compost or farmyard manure dug in at planting.
There are exceptions, but it will always be written on the label.
When it comes to height, you will naturally you put the tall ones at the back of the border.
In my opinion, the colour of the flowers is the most important choice and maybe the foliage colour.
In an ideal world, if you want your garden to look really cool, you should know what season it is just by the colour.
It’s predominately white and yellow for spring, stronger reds, blues and rich pinks for the heat of the summer, and in a sunny aspect throw in a splash of silver. Autumn should be dominated by oranges, purples and bronze, and in winter, it’s seed heads and foliage.
For a cottage garden, plant anything you like, wherever you like, but remain true to whichever design you choose.
As I said earlier, most herbaceous plants die back for the winter – that’s why they’re called herbaceous. They don’t have woody stems, so if you only plant herbaceous, your garden will look bare in winter and early spring.
For balance, include some evergreen shrubs, even the odd tree, which will give you winter interest, and there are many lovely herbaceous plants that thrive in the shade under a tree in summer.
Now is the perfect time to plant.
PS
Most important – don’t plant in singles, plant in clumps of three, five or seven – more or less is always better.
If you have a gardening query and would like the answer shared in this column, contact O’Meara’s Garden Pavilion, Gaybrook, Mullingar: 044 9342088 ; gaybrook@iol.ie