Alan Titchmarsh reveals his favourite line-up of superstar performers to bring spectacle to your garden throughout the year
Subtlety is all very well in a garden, but every now and then it’s good to have a shot in the arm, a blast of colour or scent that really does cause you – or a visitor – to say ‘Wow!’ Now you’re never going to get the wow factor from those stalwarts of the border – the groundcover plants and the grasses that are invaluable fillers – although on a winter’s morning even those grasses can be unusually impressive when sun glints on the frost-rimed seedheads.
But let’s look at some plants that might not suit every taste but that even the most hardened cynic would admit really do knock you back on your heels. Delphiniums are a case in point. Planted in a sunny spot at the back of a border their towering spires are breathtaking in early summer – especially if they’re a vibrant shade of blue, such as the rich, deep ‘Faust’ or, my own favourite, ‘Pandora’, which is almost electric blue. I’ve tried the red varieties but find them less robust and often unreliable at coming through the winter unscathed. You’ll have to keep the slugs off them when their shoots are emerging in spring, and stake the stems as they extend, but your reward will be the admiring glances from passers-by.
Dramatic dahlias
At the other end of the summer season – from July through to the frosts of autumn – dahlias are unbeatable. Available in a range of flower forms and any colour you like except blue, they can occupy any part of a border – tallest at the back, shortest at the front – and thrive in rich soil rather than thin, sandy stuff. Dig in plenty of garden compost to hold on to moisture if your soil is poor. In the milder counties you can leave the tubers in the ground over winter, as long as you mulch with an insulating layer of well-rotted compost or manure when you cut back the stems after the first autumn frosts. I cut mine down after they’ve been frosted, dig them up, shake off the soil and simply stack them on top of each other under the bench in the potting shed. They invariably survive and I don’t have to dread the onset of a really cold winter when ground-penetrating frost can see them off.
On balconies and smaller patios, pelargoniums (I confess to still calling them geraniums on a day-to-day basis) are matchless
