Make it zing
FLESH out your mixed borders with the hottest hardy annuals this spring.
Pastel colours can give your garden a romantic feel while bright zingy colours will create borders so bright you will need to wear shades.
Simply throw seed on bare ground and in 12 weeks the brown earth will become a rainbow of blooms.
When the seedlings emerge and are large enough to handle, thin out to 15-20cm and pot up a few spares for a ready supply to fill gaps in beds or for containers.
One of the most striking combinations is blue and orange – perfect partners are pot marigolds and cornflowers or love-in-the-mist.
Californian poppies are ideal for dry gravel gardens and adding splashes of vibrant colour. Check out the bee-friendly variety Red Chief, which produces masses of intensely coloured blooms all summer. Bees also love the fragrant golden and white blooms of the poached egg plant, pictured above, Limnanthes douglasii. It can be used as border edging through the garden and especially around veg beds, as it will attract hoverflies, which polli nate flowers. Plus, their larvae feed on aphids. Scabious, pictured left, are butterfly and bee magnets. The maroon or blackishpurple Ace of Spades supplies some of the deepest colours of all annuals. For a stylish combo, grow it among lime-green tobacco plants. Lavateras may be old fashioned but their bushy habit make them great gap fillers for cottage-style beds. Their silky blooms, which can be glowing pink and glistening white, are up to 10cm across on plants 60-90cm tall.
Cleverly use them to fill gaps around the garden, especially in areas where you are waiting for slower shrubs and perennials to grow.
Bring a splash of sunshine to your sitting area by screening it with a sunflower hedge. There are knee-high varieties that can be grown in pots and borders, as well as the mammoths such as Russian Giant, which will easily reach three metres with yellow flowers up to 30cm in diameter.
The daisy-like heads of sunflowers twist and turn to face the sun. Sow now for late summer flowers that will last up until the frosts.
Plant two or three seeds in each pot and tease out weaker seedlings after germination. As birds love to eat the seeds, grow sunflowers near your house and watch them feed in the autumn. Tie in the thorny shoots of blackberries to supports before growth gets under way to prevent them from blowing about. Make sure you wear thorn-proof gloves and are up to date with your tetanus jabs just in case. TO straighten the stems of an tulips, unruly bunch of in wrap the heads snugly them in paper and stand cold water for several hours rs before putting them hem in a vase.