More plant combinations for pots and some forward planning

Tender perennials, annuals and summer bulbs fill a large group of pots
in the pottery's courtyard garden,
with yet more lushness in the background.

The garden is full to bursting and yet we are stuffing more and more plants in pots and inflicting them on an unsuspecting public. We are getting more and more visitors now, inluding a local art group who unfortunately got rained on.

Colourful greeting

As you enter the courtyard garden the red/green/yellow/white plantings on the left are beginning to fill out after just a few days. The only Ensete ventricosum to survive the winter has been used, along with some Hedychium coccineum, Pelargonium, Dahlia, Eucomis, Lysimachia, Begonia 'Non-stop White' and annuals such as  Petunia 'Easy Wave' (picking the red ones out of the gaudy mix), Agrostis nebulosa, Kochia trichophylla and Nemesia 'St George'.



The dazzling Miss Babs



April showers have been falling in June and so the garden is looking wonderfully lush still. It is chilly though and I can't help resenting the rain even though I know how much it is needed.

Dressing to impress
I have been getting a bit of extra help from Miss Babs recently, which is really valuable as she empties big pots for me and pots up the re-usable plants while I can get on with the planting. Babs came well prepared for the weather on Tuesday but I could feel an incipient migraine every time I looked at her.

I asked Babs to empty the basket pots by the store-room door and then I took the big ferns which had spent the winter out in full sun by the entrance arch and moved them to this nice, shady position for their summer holidays. This position does get sun in the late afternoon and evening but it doesn't have the scorching midday/early afternoon sun which would soon make them look a bit crispy.

Fuzzy logic

I decided on orange and purple for this group, starting with Salvia confertiflora, which has spikes of fuzzy orange flowers held on purple fuzzy stems in late summer and looks fantastic with late afternoon sun coming through it. I added the dark purple foliage of Oxalis triangularis, this really needs deep shade and dislikes being transplanted but I hope it will forgive me because those shamrock-like purple leaves are something special. I then squeezed in some dark purple Verbena, a few Amaranthus 'Illumination' (I'm not sure how this will turn out as I haven't grown it before but I can always cut it down if it is awful) and some Anagallis 'Sunlover Orange', which last has soft orange flowers with violet centres and cascades nicely down a tall pot.

It looks a bit scrawny at the moment, but it only takes a few days for the dishevelled annuals to turn their leaves towards the light, then after a week or so their roots will be starting to explore the fresh compost and growth and flowering will really begin to get going.

Look this way

The planting featured below is in one of the pots in the first photograph in this post. After a few days the plants have turned their faces to the light - it is important to look at them when you are planting and recognise that each has a front and a back as they will look established much more quickly if they have the right side facing the sun. They are also already beginning to fill in the spaces between them and produce more flowers.

Dahlia 'Geerling's Moonlight', Salvia elegans, Pelargonium 'Moore's Victory and Lysimachia congestiflora 'Lyssi'

Fuchsia boliviana 'Alba' on the left, accompanied by Heliotropium 'Marine',
Aeonium 'Zwartkop', Nemesia 'St George', Pelargonium australis,
purple petunias and a red Pelargonium whose name I have lost...

Feeling better now

The plantings I did in pouring rain in front of the Octagon just over a week ago (left) are beginning to look a lot happier. The petunias and heliotrope have resumed flowering and the Nemesia is colouring up nicely.

Many of the autumn plantings are still looking great, which makes the changeover much less stressful. I am moving around the pottery according to which pots look the most tired, whereas usually I have to tear things out and plant as fast as I can so that visitors aren't disappointed.

Planting plans

I know the garden looks fairly random but I do in fact plan the pot displays quite carefully in a notebook (editing it in my head all the time according to how the plants are developing) and when I have to change from one area to another these plans help to stop me from using up plants I need for a certain area somewhere else. Do you see what I mean? This is hard to explain!

Whatever the size of your garden, it is worth jotting notes when you ponder future developments - it will help to save you money at the garden centre for one thing...

Pelargonium 'Duke of Edinburgh' and Lobelia 'Riviera Sky Blue' already
working hard while other plants find their feet.
Picture taken immediately after planting.

Watch this space

Yesterday I planted the two big Italianate pots by our famous flowerpot arch. They look pretty messy and a bit flat at the moment but I am hoping that some of the annuals included in this combination will grow to more impressive proportions - gambling on good weather again.

The variegated ivy-leafed Pelargonium  'Duke of Edinburgh' which is already looking quite handsome is, like its namesake, vigorous and assertive, but hopefully doesn't make so many offensive jokes. Like many of my favourite plants the original specimen of this was given to me by another gardener. I think this is going to be an interesting planting to watch develop.

Ornithogalum ponticum 'Sochi'

Bulb sale deliberations

Behind the scenes Jane and I have been making the first draft of our bulb order for the Spring Bulb Sale in September. I have noted which bulbs did particularly well and we will drop a few others in favour of exciting new ones. Our bulb guru, Rene is visiting us from The Netherlands later this week and we will have animated discussions with him no doubt! He will be in time to see the very new Ornithogalum ponticum 'Sochi' which he gave me last year flowering in a Long Tom in the garden.

A soggy gardener's thoughts on plant choice and combinations

Hardy perennials in the pots and flowerbeds are very happy as miserable May gives way to flaming June but this gardener isn't feeling quite so hardy.

A riot of paeonies, alliums, roses, geraniums and sage in Whichford Pottery's courtyard garden

It was hard to start planting the summer displays last week because of the continuing cool and drying wind. This developed into a cold, blustery wind. I carried on planting, but some of the tender plants were damaged and battered by the wind and had trouble establishing while their tender new leaves lost too much water. This week it was cold, blustery and wet but I couldn't postpone the planting any longer, so the gardener began to look just as bedraggled as the petunias.

So nice to have a glamorous job.

Salvia semi-atrata

The weather has now started tentatively to improve, so it's full steam ahead. I'm hoping the petunias, salvias, Nemesia 'St George', Heliotropium 'Marine', Fuchsia boliviana 'Alba' and Ipomoea 'Grandpa Ott' (purple morning glory) huddled in the picture above will soon start to romp away. I'm not worried about the black Aeonium 'Zwartkop' because that is usually unperturbed by wind and rain: it only fears frost.

The aeoniums are an obvious choice in a display that includes some of our black pots but I also think that the intense purply blues of petunias and Salvia semi-atrata are rather wonderful against the black.

Small moments of satisfaction

The details of some pots will give me ideas for their contents. I was rather pleased with the way these marigolds (from a batch of Tagetes 'Disco Mix') echoed the shape of the palm tree on the Tresco pot.

Tagetes 'Disco Mix' in a Tresco pot

Where do I start?
People often feel stumped when they are starting their summer planting - there is just too much choice of  material. My advice is just to latch on to one or two details of shape or colour, or start from one particularly gorgeous plant and the rest will follow.

 I wanted a large pot for the two Solanum crispum 'Glasnevin' which I had kept from one of our Hilllier deliveries so I chose the largest Wisley Gardener's pot and placed it by a sunny wall. The pots that we make with grey decoration look good with grey-leafed plants but also suit blues and purples really well.

I was delighted to find that a new Nemesia which I had grown from seed had flowers which picked up the purple and yellow of the Solanum. My pleasure increased when I just happened to find a purple double petunia and a few yellow marigolds to complete the combination. This is a set of colours I like so much I can taste it! Er... I'm not alone in enjoying colour so much am I?

Nemesia 'Masquerade', Tagetes 'Disco Mix' and a double petunia in a Wisley Gardener's Pot

I really hope that Nemesia 'Masquerade' is a generous flowerer - because the first few blooms are very promising and make me smile every time I see them. I have decided that this little corner is a tribute to my maternal grandmother - my horticultural genes are from her - because she loved purple and yellow flowers together.

Nemesia 'Masquerade' - what an entertaining flower!

No need for alarm

The pots in the courtyard garden this year will favour hot colours, so I have been busy gathering up red salvias, dahlias and pelargoniums in the last couple of days. Red is a colour many people are scared of using but it can really lift your spirits, especially if the summer is very grey and British. Sometimes I pile all the reds together and hang the consequences - in theory they should clash but if you use clashing colours with conviction it can be surprisingly effective. Never clash half-heartedly, you really have to go for it. This summer I am using lots of different reds in the garden but am confining each group of pots to one particular group of reds - I think of these as orange reds, pillar-box reds, pink reds and cherry reds.

Voodoo child

Shiny black and warm red blend into the garden,
picked up by valerian (Centranthus ruber)
 in the foreground

In the group of Eclipse pots I have used Pelargonium 'Voodoo', which I consider a pink red (albeit a nice dark one). This has dark markings on the petals which cry out for the company of Aeonium 'Zwartkop'. Both of these plants tend to grow into interesting sinuous shapes and so are well suited to an asymmetric planting in the contemporary lines of Eclipse pots. I know you can't see the pot in these pictures but I wanted you to see how the little glimmers of warm red shine in the context of the garden.

Pelargonium 'Voodoo' and Aeonium 'Zwartkop'

Begonia 'Non-stop White' and Hordeum jubatum

The warm Voodoo red and glossy reddish black of Zwartkop then lead to the choice of other plants: Dark leafed Begonia 'Non-stop White' will have white flowers of course but the leaves tone with the Aeonium and have a reddish back to them.

Eucomis montana

Detailed analysis
Then I just had to add Eucomis montana to the planting purely because its emerging leaves have a flush of warm red at the base. Am I becoming a teeny bit obsessive? Few people will notice this detail, I'm sure, but it will give me pleasure and the cumulative effect of all these details is to tie the planting together. For the same reason I added a scented-leaf pelargonium (don't ask me its name) whose small, white flowers have reddish pedicels. Lastly some Hordeum jubatum, a grass which may look like a weed at the moment but in late summer will have reddish barley-like flowers which ripple in the wind and look wonderful back-lit by evening or morning sunshine.

Gardening is supposed to be a source of pleasure, so please don't get stressed about getting colour combinations "right": if little colour details float your boat you should indulge yourself. If you like big, bold contrasts go right ahead. If you are like me you will enjoy it all, depending on your mood. If something doesn't work, guess what - you can change it!

Calm down, dear...

Humulus lupulus 'Aureus'
on an obelisk made from willow trimmings

Complex mixed plantings are all very well but you do need a foil for all the busy-ness. I always make sure there are some plain plantings. Hostas are very useful for this, I also have two pots with home made willow obelisks which are beginning to be colonised by the golden hop (Humulus lupulus 'Aureus') which is only accompanied by Lysimachia nummularia 'Aurea' in the same colour. A block of fresh limey green goes a long way towards calming everything down.

And finally here's a picture of the first flower produced by Lathyrus sativus 'Tutankhamun', beginning to perk up now, along with Cerinthe major 'Purpurascens'. Like me, they have just about survived the "early summer" weather and are looking forward to temperatures above 15C...

Lathyrus sativus 'Tutankhamun' with Cerinthe major 'Purpurascens in the background

Promises, promises and a quick visit to Chelsea Flower Show

I have started the summer planting, honestly I have. The ones I have done mainly involve plants which were desperate - I had a whole trayful of Lathyrus sativus 'Tutankhamun' which had knitted together horribly and gone a bit yellow at the base. I decided to mix these in with some other plants and I will wait until they have recovered a little before I photograph them. I hope they will recover because they have gorgeous almost turquoise blue flowers with pink veining... Sorry, you'll just have to wait a while.

Alpines beginning to overflow

Remember that alpine planting I did a while ago and then it got knocked over? The plants are romping away now - I can see that I'll soon have to remove or split a few of the plants as it is going beyond luxuriance and becoming shapeless now.

Allium cristophii and Pansy 'Can-can'

Allium cristophii's metallic flowers are gleaming in the stockyard pots. The beds in the courtyard garden are well stocked with Allium 'Globemaster' and the delphiniums are beginning to come out, bursting through cushions of Phuopsis stylosa and geraniums. The overflowing flowerbeds take over from the pots a little now, which gives me a bit of breathing space for replanting the pots.

Mood music

It's at this time of year that the staff linger outside for as long as possible over break and lunch. On Thursday Simon (one of our throwers) brought his new guitar in and we persuaded him to play outside, making the garden even more idyllic.

Ladies and Gentlemen please welcome Mr Simon Day and his 12 strings

Change of tempo

Jim Keeling with his Golden Cypress

I have just come back from a much less peaceful scene - Chelsea Flower Show. Yesterday morning I joined the London commuters on the 6.15 from Moreton-in-Marsh; we aren't exhibitors this year but Hillier has used Jim's latest sculpture, the Golden Cypress, on their huge stand in the marquee, and I was offered a spare ticket for Press Day.

Jim's extraordinary creation is so large and complex that it involved just about everyone at the pottery, firing, spraying, hand-gilding, manoeuvring and packing it for its journey. Now it gleams from amongst Hillier's wonderful collection of trees and shrubs.

Today (Tuesday) we have learnt that for the 62nd year in a row Hillier has achieved a gold medal. Well done everyone!

I left Jim to talk to possible customers and went to inspect this year's crop of gardens and exhibits.

Do I know you?

Press day is also celeb day so I was distracted to a certain extent because I kept seeing people I thought I knew. Some, such as Ringo Starr, attracted swarms of photographers, others managed to be more discreet. I suddenly realised I was standing next to Dame Maggie Smith while we both scrutinised Andy McIndoe's planting on the Hillier exhibit. A photographer thanked her for allowing him to snap her, "Well I didn't have any alternative" was her slightly acerbic response.

Even though she obviously had a book to plug I couldn't help feeling slightly sorry for Gwyneth Paltrow as she was pushed out to walk across  the B&Q garden towards an army of paperazzi (standing on chairs they'd pinched from the exhibitors' restaurant). She did look a bit sheepish.

Gwyneth Paltrow runs the gauntlet

I bet she's looking forward to her shower.

Many other gardens opted for living sculptures with slightly lower profile. Having decorative people in your garden may make for entertaining photos but it does rather distract from the garden. In some cases I suppose it did make up for a genuine lack of interest but in many I thought it was a shame that even keen gardeners like me were being distracted from the plants and design by all the shenanigans. The fiercest competition at Chelsea is for the prize of publicity, however, so the gloves and sometimes a lot of other clothing, are off.

A little t'ai chi in the garden?

There was some clever planting. I always enjoy Cleve West's gardens so I wasn't surprised to find myself drawn to his even before I knew who had designed it. His gardens always seem warm-hearted and useable, whereas some Chelsea show gardens can be stylish but cold.



Cleve West's garden at Chelsea. Gold, Best in Show.


 I also enjoyed the blend of colours in Luciano Giubbilei's garden, a designer I don't remember seeing before.

Planting by Luciano Giubbilei Gold Medal



Planting by Tom Hoblyn

The colour combinations in Tom Hoblyn's planting were fresh and clean and not often seen at Chelsea. There was beautiful stonework and woodwork in all of these gardens and many more but I'm afraid I naturally get more excited about the soft landscaping than the hard landscaping - and, by the way, I saw no exciting container planting at all. Can't help thinking we should do a garden some time!


So it follows that I usually spend more time inside the marquee than outside. I was very pleased to see that Hardy's Cottage Garden Plants had chosen to exhibit their beautiful Anemone 'Wild Swan' in a Whichford pot. We learned this morning that this has been voted Plant of the Year. I'd like to think the pot helped...

Anemone 'Wild Swan' in a Kitchen Garden pot
Plant of the Year

Anemone 'Wild Swan'

So if you visit Chelsea this week please have a look at the Whichford contributions - and enjoy the show.

Your chance to gather some more ideas
By the way Andy McIndoe - who masterminded the spectacular Hillier stand - is coming to the pottery on Saturday June 11th to talk on "Form, Foliage and Flowers", tickets are still available so why not take the chance to hear from someone with a phenomenal track record of growing and exhibiting plants?

I'll be talking the next day (June 12th) on "Pots for Special Occasions" so I really hope to see some of you there - I hope to be able to give you some inspiration for summer plantings. Just call the Pottery on 01608 684416 or see the website for details.

The Golden Cypress
Hillier gold medal-winning exhibit, Chelsea Flower Show

Viola time is nearly over but the birds are still going strong

Pansy 'Can-Can' still colourful but getting scruffy.
Allium karataviense 'Ivory Queen' in the seed pan at bottom right.

Pansies and violas have done a sterling job but are now just reaching the borderline between luxuriance and scruffiness. It seems a shame but Babs and I are just about to start ripping them all out and planting up all the summer stuff.

Fluffy balls
Alliums are still looking good: Allium karataviense 'Ivory Queen' has been attracting a lot of comment from visitors to the pottery. Unlike most alliums this has neat leaves which look sculptural and interesting as soon as they emerge and stay in pretty good shape while the flower - like a fluffy white tennis ball - expands. So it looks great by itself in a pot, preferably with a gravel or pebble mulch covering the surface of the compost.

Violas in a small fritillary pot

We won't empty all the pots at once, the changeover process will take from now until July probably. I'll keep the best survivors until last. The violas will go on the compost heap, some bulbs will be saved, others composted. All the shrubs and perennials will be potted up in plastic and kept for use next autumn.

Waiting in the wings

I've been having difficulty hardening plants off in this sunny but cool and windy weather so the polytunnel is bursting and it is almost impossible to walk through the greenhouse now. I leave the doors of both open during the day and now the polytunnel is open at night as well. It has doors at both ends, so hopefully the plants in there will not find outdoor conditions too much of a shock.

The polytunnel jungle

Hardy annuals such as marigolds are easy to harden off, Linaria 'Spanish Dancer' was positively relieved to get out in the cool air this year. You have to be extra careful with more tender subjects, however, plants like Tithonia rotundifolia and Morning Glory (Ipomoea purpurea) will simply stop growing if exposed to cool temperatures too suddenly.

Le rouge et le noir

Having said that I have been sneaking a few tender things out already. One of my favourites is Pelargonium ardens, with small but astonishingly, properly, red flowers, each petal having a dark mark which invites you to grow black plants with it such as Aeonium arboreum 'Zwartkop'. It seems to like relatively cool conditions so it is one of the first of my pelargoniums to be allowed out.

Pelargonium ardens in a Frilly Lily pot

Pot to Plate

On Friday and Saturday we had one of our special events, "Pot to Plate" with guest speakers Sophie Grigson (well known for, amongst other things, urging people to Eat Your Greens), and Chris Smith from Pennard Plants. Chris gave a really informative and interesting talk on growing edible plants in pots. I found it satisfying because he confirmed many things I have found for myself by trial and error (it's always reassuring when that happens) and he was obviously comfortable with growing plants in terracotta generally.

You'd be surprised how many gardeners are prejudiced against terracotta because they have been told it is difficult to keep watered. I shall rant about this in more detail another time but take it from me it is no more difficult than using less porous containers, in fact in my experience it is easier. One of the things we agree on is that it is not helpful to line terracotta with plastic (advice parroted in some surprising publications).

Chris Smith talking at Whichford Pottery.  Photo by Lynda Dyer

At Pennard Plants Chris grows a wide range of herbs, salads, vegetables and fruit, so he was full of useful suggestions for suitable varieties and combinations (too many to list here I'm afraid...) and brought plenty to sell too. I often use edibles mixed with the ornamental plantings but listening to Chris has made me think that maybe we should find a space for a potted potager of some sort. Maybe next year as I have planned all this summer's spaces already. Food for thought anyway.

Mrs B the blackbird on her nest.

Avian triumphs and disasters

We were also excited last week because Mrs B built a beautiful nest in a wall pot and was firmly sitting in it on Thursday despite the fact that it was right next to a busy path. And we were so disappointed to find on Friday morning that the nest had been raided (jackdaws probably) and little blue eggs were spattered on the path.

She has already raised one brood but she normally does three or four as far as we can tell. I'm glad to say that she is all right and has been busy building in the rose on the wall of the pottery, let's hope the thorns deter predators.

There are other birds all over the place. As I drive to work in the morning yellowhammers and goldfinches burst up from the road. The friendly robin has raised a brood successfully and was escorting them about on the compost heap this morning. A few days ago there was a fledgling robin in the greenhouse - they seem to get the hang of finding their way out relatively quickly, luckily.



Baby robin in the greenhouse

This morning the wren was singing well above its weight (how does such a small bird have such a loud voice?) perched in the backup stock area. I'm not sure where it is nesting but there is usually one living around the sheds somewhere.

Wren in backup.

After a little much-needed rain growth is lush and it is getting harder to move stock along the paths, nevertheless the birds are not the only ones to be busy here and despite the upheavals of summer special events our amazing making team is managing to produce plenty of stock - I think you'll agree it looks fantastic even before it is planted!

Deadheading in the rain

Rain at last! This means goodbye to almost all of the tulips, and this year Tulip 'Queen of Night' wins the prize for last tulip standing - or rather leaning - and very delicious it looks too, bedecked with raindrops.

Tulip 'Queen of Night'



Tulip 'Picture' in a Great Warwick Pot

Tulip 'Picture' is one of the latest to colour up and has lasted as long as 'Queen of Night'. It isn't to everyone's taste, being such a strangely curly tulip, but it it has strong stems and a clear colour and is one of the sturdy, tall tulips that I can safely recommend to people who are nervous of tall plants in pots and think that everything "suitable for container planting" should be stunted and squat.

Tulip 'Carnaval de Nice' in a Basket Lily Pot

I'm writing this at home, so I can't see, but I am pretty sure that Tulip 'Carnaval de Nice' will have been dashed to pieces by the heavy rain; a few days ago it had opened as far as it possibly could and once tulips have done that the tepals are much more likely to be knocked off by wind, rain, dogs, children, handbags, hosepipes and the fairies at the bottom of the garden.

Off with their heads.

Now is the time to dead-head them. If you only have limited time just make sure that you snap the developing seed-heads off the tulips so that the bulbs don't waste energy on seed production and have a better chance of producing flowers next year. It is, however, worth going further than that: I always underplant tulips with other plants, especially violas and pansies, and in order to keep these in good enough condition to rise up and take over from the defunct bulbs I normally cut the tulip stems down to just above the first big leaf.

Cutting off tulip stems

In theory this does reduce the amount of energy going back into the bulb, but I want my plantings to look good until it is safe to get all the summer bedding out of the greenhouse. Most of our tulip bulbs either go on the compost heap or get planted in my or Jim's gardens, so I don't really mind if they are a little bit weakened. My priority is to keep the other plants happy, so if some of those big floppy tulip leaves are sitting on them I will take those off too by twisting them at the base.



Removing a lower leaf



Before - the remains of the tulips dominate

This means that the plants around them get more light and air and will soon fill the space and carry on flowering. I try to remove just one big leaf per tulip to give it a sporting chance. Doing this and making sure the violas are dead-headed regularly will make your pots look better immediately, it prolongs the display and you will get your money's worth out of your plants instead of letting the bedding languish and rot under dying bulb leaves.

Where did those pop up from?
It's amazing what a visual distraction the redundant tulip leaves and stems are. As soon as you remove them you will find that people suddenly start to notice the other plants in the pot.

After - Blue conifer Chamaecyparis pisifera, Violas, Anemone blanda 'White Splendour', Pinks and delicate white Allium cowanii can all see the light of day again



The four pictures above were taken at my house, so you won't see this potful at the Pottery but there is plenty more to see there at the moment. I have just recently taken the two Echium pininana out of the polytunnel and put them in the courtyard garden - these are officially biennials but I have had to keep them going for three years until finally they decided to flower.



Echium pininana



Echium pininana is the kind of thing you might see on the mild coasts of Cornwall growing outside, but in darkest Warwickshire it needs to spend the winter in shelter. Pots are a great way to extend the range of things you can grow, many tender-ish plants can be sheltered in garages, summer-houses or porches if you don't have a greenhouse or polytunnel.

Tasty trilliums

And finally I'll leave you with the still-fresh Trillium chloropetalum  - I have a small collection of Arisaemas and Trilliums at the Pottery, which do surprisingly well in pots in shady areas and help to provide interest during the pause between the tulips and the lilies. If you have a crowded garden - as most plantaholics do - pots can be a good place to keep such unusual treasures because they disappear so thoroughly when they are dormant that it is easy to lose them in flowerbeds.

Trillium chloropetalum with Heuchera 'Key Lime Pie'

Oh all right, here's one more - this is a pot of Trillium flexipes, photographed last week. Sometimes it's best to keep things simple.

Trillium flexipes in a Long Tom