| If you were lucky enough to visit the Chelsea Flower | | | | through to late September and many of these plants |
| Show in May you may, like me, have felt something | | | | look great with frost on their dying leaves in the |
| was missing. Walking past all those great show | | | | autumn so you have an excuse not to tidy up until |
| gardens designed by some of the best garden | | | | the end of the year! |
| designers you'll have wondered where all the colours | | | | Hotter colours had a brief showing as fashionable |
| had gone. In fact there were only a handful of | | | | plants back in 2007 but if you have a very sunny |
| gardens that seemed to overflow with colour whilst | | | | spot they are a great year in year out solution to |
| the majority concentrated on the singular use of | | | | fight against the sun and give your garden a wow |
| green foliage with the occasional elegant use of | | | | factor. Once again, Hemerocallis is a good plant for |
| white. This year gardening fashion has gone green in | | | | long lasting displays, choose the hot varieties like |
| more ways than one. | | | | "Scarlet Orbit", "Golden Chimes" and "Stafford". |
| Foliage is the new fashion for 2008 in gardens. From | | | | Crocosmia is another easy hot perennial which |
| long sweeping hedges and huge clumps of bamboos, | | | | requires no maintenance apart from a tidy in the |
| to formal topiary and exotic greens in the form of | | | | autumn. Many daisy type flowers can provide late |
| tree ferns and palms. The fashionable garden is | | | | summer interest and the best for impact and height |
| understated and concentrates on form and texture. | | | | must be Rudbeckia fulgida "Goldsturm" other varieties |
| Maybe it's a natural progression from an emphasis on | | | | might reach higher but this one is a must for a hot |
| the environment and waterwise planting but I have | | | | corner. And then there are the Heleniums and |
| to say for me it feels a bit cold. A sophisticated | | | | another favourite of mine Kniphofia the red hot |
| green and white scheme can look great in a formal | | | | poker which I persuade very few people to have in |
| city garden but I'd like a little more oomph in the my | | | | their gardens. I think it's a lot like Dahlias in that we |
| planting even if its only a field of blues and cool | | | | associate these plants with our grandparents and |
| yellows. | | | | allotments but maybe if we really are all getting |
| The important thing for us is that we don't have to | | | | allotments again then maybe these great plants will |
| follow fashion in our own spaces. Indeed, if past | | | | make a comeback. A border full of these colours will |
| trends are anything to go by next year the fashion | | | | certainly bring a smile to your face during the |
| will be for much brighter sunnier colours. So how can | | | | economic gloom! |
| we get ahead and plant next year's fashionable | | | | There's over a thousand different varieties of plants |
| garden?! | | | | in just these few species I've mentioned above so |
| One of my favourite colour combinations is to use | | | | there's no reason why you can't get down to the |
| blues, purples, yellows and whites. For a relaxed | | | | garden centre of your local nursery and pick out a |
| Mediterranean feel try mixing aromatics like Lavender, | | | | colour combination that works for you. Get a trolley |
| Salvia and Rosemary with flowering shrubs like | | | | and play around with the plants, just remember |
| Teucrium, the rock roses Cistus and Helianthemum | | | | garden centres tend to stock what's hot that month |
| and a great favourite of mine Perovskia atriplicifolia | | | | so if you want a year round splash of colour you'll |
| "Blue Spire". Then mix in some of the Verbascums | | | | need to spend a little more time researching winter, |
| like Verbascum 'Gainsborough and Anthemis tinctoria | | | | autumn and spring colours. You could look at winter |
| "E C Buxton". And for some excellent groundcover | | | | Hamamellis in yellows and reds, great autumn colours |
| try Phlomis russelina, the day lily Hemerocallis and | | | | like the leaves of Hydrangea quercifolia and all those |
| Lysamachia punctata. For some height in your border | | | | spring bulbs. |
| try mixing together Verbena bonariensis and | | | | Whatever you do now will reward with great colours |
| Veronicastrum "Apollo". This mix of plants will give | | | | next year and you never know, you might be really |
| you a really long summer of colours from May | | | | fashionable for a season? |