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Spring is just around the corner – honestly! – and plants will soon be bursting into life. If you want to bring some pizzazz to your garden, you’ll want to carefully choose your plants and consider where to place them.
“What you need coming out of winter is lots of pots by your back door, because you can see them straight away, which will entice you out,” says garden designer, television presenter and author Ann-Marie Powell. She has shared her top picks for springtime planting and advice from her new book, A Year of Colour.
1. Anemones: “The gorgeous sapphire anemone ‘Mr Fokker’ is the most welcome plant with all his friends in my garden,” she says. “They are just so jolly and when they start coming out of the ground they are a bit like meerkats, where their heads are slightly nodding and their blooms are not fully open.”
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They just need a little sun and the flowers will come out in all their glory, reports PA’s Hannah Stephenson. Anemones are ideal pot partners with daffodils, Muscari (grape hyacinths) and pansies, but are also brilliant at the front of borders.
“You wouldn’t believe that a flower as glamorous and beautiful as this comes from a wizened old bulb,” says Powell. “Their ferny foliage is also really pretty. And when they’ve lost all of their petals, in seedhead, they are beautiful. They look like silky little purses – and hopefully will help feed your birds.”
SUN LOVER: Anenomes will thrive in pots or borders (Image: Julie Skelton/PA)
2. Iris reticulata: “I love Iris ‘Pixie’ and ‘Angela’, which is a paler blue with a purple glow to it and an orange blotch in the fall of the petal – it looks really lovely with Crocus ‘Orange Monarch’, she says. “If you plant those together, you have a gorgeous awakening that is jazzed up with the bright orange and pale blue, an unusual combination which just makes your heart sing.”
Irises are short-lived, so they should sit in the uppermost layer of a pot, which you can fill with violas. Underneath, you can tuck in other bulbs like tulips that’ll pop up later in the season.
HARDY PERENNIAL: Irises are one of the earliest signs of life in the late-winter garden (Image: Julie Skelton/PA)
3. Tulips: Powell recommends perennial tulips, which don’t need lifting and will come back year after year. She says: “My favourite is Tulipa ‘Sonnet’ because it goes with everything. It has these beautiful pinky purple elongated blooms, but also apricot and yellow flames to the edges of it.
“It’s like a stained glass window when it is caught in the light. This means you can mix it with really brooding colour schemes of deep plummy maroons and blacks, like ‘Queen Of Night’ or you can go for bright oranges like ‘Ballerina’ and I like to zing it up with ‘Bourbon Street’, which is orangey-red.
“‘Banja Luka’ is a really dramatic, huge goblet-shaped plant, golden yellow streaked with red. With that, you get all the strident colours which you can pick.” After their first year in pots, she says these perennials will do better in the border, as there are more nutrients in the soil.
BLOOMING MARVELLOUS: Tulips come in a wide variety of colours (Image: Julie Skelton/PA)
In her borders, Powell tends to plant in clumps of 12, leaving a gap before the next dozen, all in a vibrant mix of colours. She says: “You get a mixed array, but it looks a bit more purposeful and intentional and gives you more impact.”
When your perennials start coming up a bit later, they’ll cover all the spent tulip leaves – so avoid planting bulbs too close to the border’s edge. If possible, she says it’s best to set them back at least 2ft (60cm) from the front.
4. Amelanchier x lamarckii: Powell says: “If you plant one tree in your garden it’s got to be an Amelanchier x lamarckii, especially in spring. There’s a variety called ‘Ballerina’ which is smaller than the standard type, so you can plant it in reasonably small gardens.
“It has a brilliant season of interest, but in early spring you get these beautiful white/pink/peach flowers on the bare branches. In spring, a lot of things tend to be more at ground level but if you have something that’s flowering its heart out, with star-shaped white blossoms, it really lifts the scene.”
Planting amelanchiers on either side of a pathway will beautifully frame the view of your garden. She says you can plant them in pots, but they’ll need a bit more TLC, as you’ll have to ensure they’re adequately watered and fed throughout the year.
STAR-SHAPED FLOWERS: Amelanchiers are also known as Serviceberry or Juneberry trees (Image: Julie Skelton/PA)
5. Fabulous foliage: “At this time of year there aren’t that many flowers to choose from, but when the new foliage of roses comes up, you’ll see rich red young leaves and the red stems are glorious,” says Powell. “I have roses growing next to a Rodgersia in my garden. It’s a good combination for shady spots where you have tricky soil.
“All the ferns are coming up so you have the lime greens of matteuccias and the fresh green crosiers (commonly known as fiddleheads) of Polystichum ‘Herrenhausen’. I love watching a fern unfold. It’s almost prehistoric and adds colour and excitement where other colour is going to come later in the season.”
She says to put them in a semi-shady border, layered with other plants. “You could grow many roses, like Rosa x odorata ‘Mutabilis’ and ‘Night Owl’ next to them, with other perennials in between that are going to take over later on and keep the display going.”
Books on garden colour 🌷📚
A Year Of Colour by Ann-Marie Powell costs £17.67 on Amazon, saving 29%. Based on her own vibrant garden, with 40 tried-and-tested planting combinations for full colour in every season. Colour In The Garden by Lucy Bellamy (Mitchell Beazley) is less than half price on Amazon, down from £25 to £10.45. Inspiring planting schemes and plant lists, with ideas for containers, tiny back gardens and small front gardens. Save 56% on 365 Days of Colour In Your Garden by Nick Bailey at Books4People, now £10.95. The BBC Gardeners’ World presenter explains simple colour theory principles and how to apply them to your garden.
Prices correct at the time of publication.
Prices correct at time of publishing.
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