Fill your basket with lots of colour

 

With summer upon us, we are all dreaming of adding wonderful colour to our patio and front door. This time of the year at Griffins, there is an abundance of colour for your hanging baskets and pots. So here's advice to help you choose the right plants for your baskets and pots.

 

Bacopa

For me, this is one of the most romantic flowers in fashion at the moment. Once seen as an unusual flower, in recent years it has become very popular in garden centres and why not? It's adorable!

This plant has long, cascading stems that smother themselves in tiny, perfect, five-petal flowers. It's become a favourite in all hanging baskets where its pretty trailing habit can be shown off. Also try it in pots, planters, and window boxes combined with other plants or on their own. It’s available in an array in snowflake white, soft blue or pastel pink.

Bidens

Bidens are an absolute must if you wish to create an eye catching display with a variety of colours and plants in your basket. Bidens are definitely the best fiery yellow flower for your basket; I would recommend planting a biden in the middle of the basket and the bright blooms will grow though the baskets.

This year at Griffins, we have a large range of bidens to suit all your container and basket needs including a lovely yellow-orange variety.

Fuchsia

Last week, we spoke a lot about the fantastic fuchsia. The trailing fuchsia will bring instant colour to a shaded area and the bees will buzzing for it.

Finding a plant that will bring such a blast of colour to a dull corner may often seem impossible but the Blooms of May range of fuchsia will do this. In our nursery, our grower John is amazed at the amount of bees feeding of the fuchsia blooms. These nectar rich plants have been given the seal of approval by our local bees.

Million bells

Their names says it all. They will produce millions of flowers throughout the whole season and we see the bees especially flock to the dark blue variety. Bees love the colour blue.

Their trailing habit, low maintenance, and prolific blooms make million bells excellent candidates for containers and hanging baskets. Million bells are also somewhat drought tolerant, so you can include them in the rock garden.

Trailing verbena

This trailing plant is ideal for a sunny basket. It will bring layers of colour to your display and is available in an array of colours from vibrant reds and deep purples to pastel pinks and blues. It is another bee friendly winner.

Nemesias

The super fragrant Nemesia has been around for a number of years but has stayed on the fringes. New strains are being developed all the time and with new hardier varieties now available they are becoming increasingly popular and can be readily found at good gardening centres and nurseries.

It comes in an exciting range of shades through wonderful whites, deep royal blues, pale sky blues, bright yellow, orange and reds, scarlets and rosy pinks, most with a lovely aromatic fragrance to set your garden alight with scent. This is an ideal plant for all bees not just our honey bees.

Visit us at Griffin Garden Centre Drispey for all advice of bee friendly gardening and planting combinations or phone 021-7334286.