Beautiful borders

Put excitement into your garden by making it edgy!

1 CHOOSE YOUR COLOUR THEME

The great thing about gardening is that you don’t have to worry about clashing colours – anything goes! In this case the dominant colours are limey-yellow – the golden smoke bush (Cotinus coggygria ‘Golden Spirit’) and creeping Jenny (Lysimachia sp) – and the purple tones in the salvia spires, all set off by the masses of grey foliage. Perfect!

It’s time for the big guns. While spring is stunning with its fleeting bursts of flowering bulbs and blossoms, summer gardens fire on all cylinders. Along paths and up fences or hedges, put the wow into summer with big, colourful, long-lasting flowers, groovy grasses and small trees. They’ll blow you away!

2 BOUNDARY RIDERS

You may have set the boundary between garden bed and grass, but some plants can’t read and will cross that line at their pleasure, such as these jolly lollipop allium drumsticks. More likely to toe the line are bright yellow inulas with their slender rays of petals, the simply superb cerise rose campions (Lychnis coronaria) and stacks of salvias.

3 DON’T FORGET THE FOLIAGE!

Echinacea is pretty – the bonus is its lush, long leaves. Make your flowers stand stronger by teaming them with different foliage shapes, colours and texture. Go for large, bold purple sedum (S. ‘Purple Emperor’) or feathery blue Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia) and add feather grass (Stipa arundinacea).

4 MEDITERRANEAN CRUISE

Don’t limit your perennial border to the traditional English style. Follow its form by all means but put in Mediterranean plants if that suits your climate – clump together tall lavenders and sea hollies, add a low, bushy, flowering oreganum, then lay down a rich purple carpet of sweet-smelling thyme.