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20 trends that will make 2024 a glorious year in the garden!
Get set for another fabulous year in the garden! Here’s all you need to know to STAY A STEP AHEAD of everyone else…
2024 SPECIAL
#1 A POT OF PLANTS FOR POLLINATORS
We gardeners have woken up to the notion that we need to help feed our bees and butterflies, but this year’s big message is that everyone can do their bit with a pot of pollinator-friendly blooms, no matter how small their plot. Even a balcony is big enough! Containers, large and small, packed with nectar-rich flowers, will entice these precious creatures to your outside space and allow them to go about their invaluable work.
Bees have great colour vision and flock to yellow, purple, blue and white flowers, while butterflies favour red, yellow, orange and pink blooms, so choose a mix of different hues and heights of flowers, with varying blooming times so your pollen-pot café is open for as long as possible.
Happy in a patio pot
✽ Lavender ‘Hidcote’ With dense spikes of fragrant deep violet summer flowers, it’s no wonder bees absolutely adore this garden favourite. Height 60cm Spread 75cm. £5.99/9cm pot rhsplants.co.uk
✽ Coreopsis ‘Red Shift’ Butterflies prefer flowers that have mini landing pads like this beauty, so they can rest their wings while eating. Height & Spread 60cm. £2.98/9cm pot woolmans.com
✽ Aquilegia ‘Kristalle’ Pollinators will find what they need, no matter where, but if your patio is shady, this creamy-white beauty will help attract all sorts. Height & Spread 50cm. £7.99/5 module plants jparkers.co.uk
✽ Penstemon ‘Andenken an Friedrich Hahn’ The sumptuous deep red tube-shaped blooms on this lofty lovely will attract long-tongued bumblebees. Height 90cm Spread 30cm. £6.99/9cm pot crocus.co.uk
✽ Echinacea ‘Rubinstern’ This variety flowers later than most, from July to September, so it’s a real help to bees and butterflies to feed their emerging young. Height 90cm Spread 50cm. £7.50/1L pot bethchatto.co.uk
#3 POPPIES
Expect to see plenty of poppies popping up here, there and everywhere in 2024. As the new year begins with nations at war, this symbolic bloom seems a timely choice. And with so many ever-more-beautiful new varieties on offer, the delicate petals and fresh colour combos embody our fragile hopes for peace.
#2 FRUGAL GARDENING
We’re making do and mending, saving seeds and swapping plants, salvaging junk to make garden sculptures and waiting for the sales before going on an alfresco furniture shopping spree. And this
