Bring style to...Summer bedding

A bit of care and thought will ensure your seasonal plant displays are a real highlight this summer. Graham Rice has suggestions that are gorgeous, but never garish

- Graham Rice

LET’S talk bedding. And, no, I don’t mean sheets and duvets. It’s an old-fashioned word that, in the 1950s and ’60s, implied rows of bright but temporary garden colour in summer or spring – commonly salvia, lobelia and alyssum. These days, it’s almost an insult. Say ‘bedding’ to people and they think of dumpy little plants and crude colour clashes – no elegance, no style and no subtlety.

But that couldn’t be further from what bedding can – and should – be. Since the late 1970s, the range of seasonal flowers available has increased at an incredible rate, and we now have more colours and colour combinations, more plant habits, and far more creeping and trailing flowers. Rather than just mixing different colours, we can carefully choose thoughtful contrasts or harmonies. While a ‘riot of colour’ was once the aim, I certainly don’t want a riot in my garden.

No longer ‘bedding’ in the old sense of the word, these temporary plants need a new term to reflect their new (and improved) status. I call them ‘summer seasonals’ and ‘spring seasonals’.

In essence, these are flowers and foliage plants that give their best for just one season, after which they’re replaced with something else. They can be hardy or half-hardy annuals, either raised from seed or bought as seedlings or young plants; they can be biennials raised from seed or bought as plants; or they can be spring or summer flowers raised from cuttings or bought as plants.

So much choice