Pick plants with the right leaf colour and the blooms around them will sing with joy
The inspirational GARDENER
Award-winning designer, TV broadcaster and best selling author who makes the ordinary extraordinary
Annual bedding plant season is upon us, and nurseries are bursting at the seams with a range of pretty plants ready for our plots. For most of us, it’s flower colour that determines our choices, but I think foliage is just as important, too.
A trailing asarina with violet flowers looks great, but if you pair it with a lime-leafed plant, its colours truly pop. The same can be said when deep pink nicotiana is partnered with some rich burgundy foliage. Or for something really dramatic, consider strong red and orange blooms sited close to black foliage. However you do it, adding annual foliage plants to your pot, border or basket display really elevates them, making them feel abundant, sumptuous and colour rich.
The best way to build up these colour palettes at the nursery is to first pick your flower tones. Once you’ve gathered these together in your trolley, try offering up different foliage plants to see the effects you might get. As a rough guide, blue is always enhanced by silver or lime leaves; pinks are enriched with deep purple or mahogany foliage; and oranges and yellows are elevated with the addition of blue-grey foliage.
There are a host of annual foliage plants available, including coleus in oranges, lime, red and yellow; Strobilanthes dyeriana in vibrant purple-silver; or Hypoestes phyllostachya in pink and green, but here are five of my recommended go-to favourites.
Helichrysum petiolare ‘Limelight’
A must-have trailing plant with its penny-sized furry pale green leaves. It works well in pots and baskets where it will trail at least 60cm. The pale tones are perfect for complementing blues or a range of pale pastels for a romantic look.
Senecio cineraria
This super-useful plant not only shimmers with silver foliage through summer, but will last through winter, too. Reaching up to around 30cm, its foliage is so silver it’s almost white. Try it with blue, orange or pink.
Ipomoea ‘Black Tone’
For real dram
