Compatible Planting
Bordervale Plants examines the way compatible planting can lead to more interest and idiosyncratic combinations that can enhance your garden.
Hybrid Tea and Floribunda roses go well with hardy geraniums acting as ground cover. Choose repeat flowering geraniums, those that you can give a hair-cut a couple of times of year to neaten them up, which then provide a further flush of flowers. This gives plenty of colour, keeps the weeds down and the roses roots cool. It avoids the bare earth look throughout the season.
For the larger shrub roses, Nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’ can be used which is a robust plant, much loved by insects and again can be given a hair-cut a couple of times of year to provide fresh flowers.
Campanula ‘Loddon Anna’ and Campanula ‘Prichards Blue’ also look good, if dead-headed regularly with these types of roses.
Another good combination is Viburnum Bodnantense which has a slight purply/pink flush to its leaves combined with Clematis ‘Comtesse de Bouchaud’ which has mid-sized pink flowers perfectly complementing the colour of the Viburnum used as a support.
In July and August, Clematis Viticella ‘Etoile Violette’ AGM (considered to be the best clematis) combined with Clematis ‘Purpurea Plena Elegans’ with double, rich purple flowers combines beautifully with the former. Both can be grown on a fence or against a wall. Keep the Clematis roots cool as they do not appreciate being baked.
Moving on to August/September, plenty of colour can be had combining Dahlias with Michaelmas Daisies and don’t forget the grasses such as Stipa Gigantea (Giant Oat Grass) or Calamagrostis ‘Karl Foerster’ with Rudbeckias such as ‘Goldsturm’ or ‘Herbstsonne’ extending the season right into autumn.
June Tips:
01. Visit gardens for inspiration & to see which plants do well locally. Get the free ‘Glamorgan & Gwent National Gardens Scheme’ booklet which lists all the nearby gardens open for charity for 2018.
02. Take photos of your garden so improvements can be made next year. Tomatoes — in the greenhouse, water & feed regularly as well as removing the side shoots & tying in, on beef tomatoes stop the plant after the 4th truss has set.
03. Delay sowing your maincrop carrots until 14th June when the carrot root fly is not so active.
04. Lettuce will not germinate in high temperatures. Sow small amounts in modules in the house (where cooler) just to get them started.
05. Ensure all plant supports are in place before growth becomes too large & unmanageable.
06. If necessary, cut back spring flowering shrubs immediately after flowering. This will avoid losing the flowers for the following year, if pruned any later this year.
07. Move all your over-wintered plant pots outside — more room for growing tomatoes in the greenhouse.
08. Feed the ornamental garden with a general purpose fertiliser before 1st July to allow lush growth to harden before the winter.
09. Keep picking sweet peas to encourage more flowers.
10. Watch out for powdery mildew on Phlox paniculata (the tall phlox) in conditions which are too dry.
11. Dead head & tie in roses (not the ones grown for their ornamental hips) & clematis.
Claire Jenkins (MCIHort)
Bordervale Plants, Ystradowen, Cowbridge, CF71 7SX
01446 774036
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