Create a Summer Flower Border
March 22nd, 2021 | Categories
Follow our simple guide to creating a summer border packed with colour and exciting seasonal plants.
Summer is the season when you can really let loose with colour, filling your borders and containers with inspirational flowering plants. But it’s not always easy to visualise and plan a new planting scheme. To help, we’ve put together a simple border plan, combining flowering shrubs and pretty perennials that flower for months at a time – many of them attract lots of bees and butterflies, too.
Our border design combines low-growing plants to create interest along the front edge; tall ‘spire-shaped’ flowers for the back; mid-height plants for the middle section and a small cherry tree to give your border extra height and tasty summer fruit. Add a decorative, fence-mounted mirror to reflect light and increase the impact, along with a stylish bath for thirsty birds, and you have a bright and beautiful summer border.
How to get a border right
- Make your border as wide as possible for maximum impact – below, our border is approx. 1.2m from the front edge to the fence at the back.
- List plants you have seen and liked, or use our summer border design as inspiration. Don’t be afraid to ‘plant-swap’ – plants of the same height, with flowers in a similar colour, will work just as well.
- Lay the plants out first, and put them in the ground when you’re happy with the overall layout.
1. Digitalis purpurea ‘Dalmation White’
(Holds an Award of Garden Merit (AGM) from the RHS) June-July
2. Polemonium ‘Bressingham Purple’ May-July
3. Heuchera ‘Frilly’ June-Sept
4. Digitalis x valinii June-July
5. Timeless Collection roses June-July
6. Dianthus ‘Tickled Pink’ June-Sept
7. Erysimum ‘Spring Breeze Sunset’ April-Sept
8. Scabiosa ‘Butterfly Blue Beauty’ July-Sept
9. Rhododendron ‘Bloombux Magenta’ June
10. Salvia nemorosa June-Oct
11. Cherry ‘Athos’ July
12. Scabiosa ‘Pink Mist’ July-Sept
13. Anemone Harmony Double Scarlet May
14. Cirsium rivulare ‘Atropurpureum’ (AGM*) June-Sept
15. Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’ (AGM*) June-Oct
