The Chelsea Look
Creating a garden that feels like a Chelsea Flower Show display all summer long is not as daunting as it may seem. There’s lots to be inspired by; new plant introductions to inspect, interesting materials and ideas for paths, pergolas and ponds, but the planting, well, this is where we sometimes have our gripes. The designers and nurseries have a comparatively small range of plants to choose from and are stuck with those that flower around the end of May (give or take a week or two – forcing flowers or holding them back is frowned upon nowadays). Cottage garden perennials abound – poppies, alliums, foxgloves, and hosts of floaty umbellifers. Many gardens this year featured a sumptuous, deep mauve lupin, aptly named ‘Masterpiece.’ But things are changing. The gardens have to be sustainable now, and should have a second life after the show, so longer lived perennials, shrubs and trees are being used.
The Glasshouse – the charity based in Cranbrook, had a large show garden this year – and sustainability, second chances and the transformative power of horticulture were at the heart of it. The garden will have a permanent life after the show at HMP Downview, a women’s prison in Surrey. The Glasshouse’s programs provide horticultural training, employment and resettlement support to women leaving prison. Designed by Jo Thompson, it had a fabulous colour scheme – rich and vibrant, combining shades of deep plum, purple and pink – the palette chosen to reflect the theme of ‘strong beauty’.

The gorgeous lupin was in this garden too, together with many fragrant roses – and roses are very long-lived, hardy shrubs – in keeping with the theme of resilience and strength. If you choose the right varieties, they will also flower all summer long.

Structure
Roses and shrubs will provide the backbone of a flower border, anchoring colour schemes and bringing substance in between more ephemeral plants. Evergreens will do this job all year round, but deciduous shrubs bring the bonus of seasonal interest from blossom, berries, autumn foliage and winter stems.
Choose these anchors first and position them carefully, as they will be harder to move than non-woody plants. Perennials benefit from being lifted and divided every 3 or 4 years, so don’t worry about planting them too close to the shrubs – they can be moved once the permanent plants start growing into their allotted spaces.

Cram, Cram, Cram
Vita Sackville-West coined the above phrase, referring to the planting of tulips, but if you want a border packed with

colour, the same applies – with some caveats. Shrubs and long lived perennials need plenty of space if they are to grow healthily, but bulbs, annuals and shorter lived perennials that don’t take up much room can be planted fairly closely together – admittedly not as jam-packed as they are at Chelsea, but you should be able to squeeze a fair few into a small space – and ring the changes as each one goes over and is replaced for the next season. This is not a low maintenance style of gardening, in fact it can be quite exhausting, but it will help to ensure that the border is packed with colour.

Long Lasting Colour
Check how long your plants will flower for. We tend to get carried away at the start of the season and rush out to fill our trolleys with cottage garden perennials and the plants that are in bloom at the start of the summer. The trouble is that June blooms don’t always last for long. Many will have finished flowering by July and can also have quite straggly foliage by that time too. There is a way to perk up the early flowerers – plants like delphiniums, lupins, catmint and geraniums; it’s a bit ruthless, but will pay off in the end. You just cut them all back down to the ground as soon as they’ve finished flowering at the beginning of July, and then by the end of August they will be back, with a repeat show of flowers and tidy new leaves.
There are some plants, however, that don’t know how to stop flowering, carrying on right through from June until the frosts. Verbena bonariensis, Gaura lindheimeri, Geranium ‘Rozanne’ and Salvias are top of my list. This fab four will mix well with other plants and continue to look good well into the autumn with minimal fuss – just trim them back a bit if they flop or spread into their neighbours.

Colour schemes
A harmonising scheme comes from choosing colours adjacent to one another on the colour wheel. Create contrasts using those on opposite sides for eye-catching, energising effects. Several of Sissinghurst’s gardens use colour really effectively. The iconic ‘White’ garden is a tranquil space, made more formal by box hedging, but also the restricted palette. The nearby cottage garden, on the other hand, contains a bold blend of reds, oranges and yellows – harmonising because these colours are next to one another on the wheel, but joyful

too – you can’t help but smile when you enter this space.
Choosing colour schemes is fun, but do bear in mind that a colour scheme one month will vary from the palette on view a few weeks later because the light changes – the seasons come and go and so do the flowers. Fresh yellows, lime greens and bright blues look wonderful in the spring, but by autumn, when the sun sinks lower in the sky, it’s the tawny and mellow shades that sit more naturally in the landscape. A sunny border in the height of summer looks good planted with strong, bright colours – they stand up to harsh sunlight well – a situation where pastels and paler hues will look washed out. Use pale colours – cream, blue, soft mauve to light up shady corners and glow in the twilight.

Gap-fillers
You can’t beat annuals for a long and colourful season. Their short, but action-packed lives are focused on flowering. Thwart them in their life’s purpose by dead heading and they will keep trucking along, flowering until the frosts.
Use annuals to plug gaps in the borders left by early bulbs – and biennials like forget-me-nots, wallflowers and foxgloves, that can be removed once they’ve flowered, but leave a few around to set seed for next year.
Floriferous and reliable annuals include Cosmos – usually in shades of white and pink, but some orange and yellow varieties too – Antirrhinums will bring a rainbow of spires, Tithonias and Zinnias sing out in oranges and pinks, acid bright in the sunshine. For the shadier parts of the garden, use scented and muted tones of Nicotiana, or low growing Impatiens (Busy Lizzies).

This is a great time of the year to get out and about and find inspiration in other people’s gardens. There are flower shows to attend (Hampton Court Flower Festival is the next RHS one at the beginning of July), and many private gardens are open to the public through the NGS (National Garden Scheme). These are great because they are relatable – closer in scale and budget to our own spaces, often with knowledgeable owners on hand offering tips, plants for sale (plus tea and cake). It might be a bit hot and dry to plant up a flower border just yet, but it’s the perfect moment to make plans and gather ideas.

Join Jo Arnell for a new border design course in October. hornbrookmanor.co.uk