Despite suffering from terrible hay fever, I have always been rather green-fingered! I really love to create my very own colourful garden using beautiful plants and flowers. My garden is something of a working progress at the moment. I’ve been creating a list of colourful plants and flowers I want to use in my garden to create my very own Eden.

Pansies

Pansies have always been a firm favourite of mine and have been planted in each garden I have ever had. They’re bright and colourful and relatively cheap to buy. They grow to around 6-9 inches tall which makes them the perfect border plants, or even for use in hanging baskets. I quite often plant pansies in between larger plants and shrubs to add vibrancy and colour to an otherwise dull area. Indeed, one of the most creative gardening features I have ever seen was the re-use of an old toilet as a planter for pansies at the stunning Manor Heath Park in Halifax (a wonderful family day out). 

Panises come in a variety of colours, I’m going to use purple pansies this year in the hopes of attracting butterflies to our garden (apparently purple is their favourite colour!). These beauties will also continue to add colour to the garden into the autumn months.

Geraniums

Geraniums always feature in my garden simply because they were the favourite plant of my great-grandfather. Like pansies, they come in a wide variety of colours and work beautifully in any garden. Cuttings can be taken from a geranium plant to increase the volume of these plants in your garden. Depending on the variety of geranium used, they can grow from 4 inches to 12 inches tall. I most often use geraniums as border plants to brighten up the garden. However they can also be used effectively as potting plants and even in window boxes.

Roses

My garden would not be complete without a selection of roses, they truly create a colourful garden. Again, these flowers come in a multitude of colours and varieties. I find these flowers relatively easy to grow and I sometimes pick them and bring them into the house. To make the most out of your roses, cut them just as the leaves begin to open! My rose bush is starting to bloom and I have one beautiful yellow rose and one bud ready to blossom to date.

The key to planting roses is to plant them in a large hole (a lesson I learnt the hard way) to give the roots plenty of space. I would recommend planting roses in a place which gets a lot of sunlight. My roses are planted in-between some of the shrubs to add a hint of colour to this part of my garden.

Rudbeckia Fulgida Var. Deamii (Black eyed Susan)

Perhaps it was the amazing name, or maybe their daisy-like appearance, whatever it is, I adore these particular flowers. I have never featured these stunning flowers in any of my gardens having only found a love for them last autumn on a visit to Williamson Park in Lancaster. I was amazed to see that once the summer flowers had faded, these beauties continued to offer such wonderful colours to the garden. Their bright colours make them perfect for attracting bees to the garden. I will certainly be planting some of these flowers this year to bring some much needed colour to my autumn garden.

Dahlias

Feeling rather adventurous with my planting this year, I have added another new flower to my ever growing list – dahlias. I had no idea there were so many different varieties of this extremely colourful plant until it came to shopping for some. On my travels to various gardens and stately homes throughout the country, I saw the Indian Summer Dahlia featuring prominently in a number of gardens throughout the autumn months. They simply have to feature in my colourful garden.

Anemone ‘Honorine Jobert’

I have see these dainty flowers in almost every country garden I have visited. They seemingly dominate the garden as the stems grow rather tall, over a metre long. I have already seen these flowers in the gardens I have visited this spring, however they do flower in the autumn months. With their vine like stems, these beautiful flowers are popular in Japanese gardens.

Physalis Alkekeng ‘Chinese Lantern’

I came across these adorable little flowers last year and simply fell in love with them. My toddler was simply fascinated with them. One of the many names they are known by is Chinese Lantern and you can really see why. These paper-like flowers flower through the summer months and into winter. I’m going to plant these beauties in a corner of my garden to add a splash of colour. These flowers will be another new addition to my garden this year.

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