The Best Of The Season’s Colours

The summer is all about bright, lively and vibrant colours – your garden should be no different! We have a rundown of the bedding plants that can give your summer garden a serious splash of colour!

Summer bedding plants do not just have to be petunias and marigolds! As well as popular bedding plants you can choose from a large range of annual bedding plants. Here is our rundown of the bedding plants which can turn your garden from drab to delightful this summer!

Sweet peas

These make a fantastic cottage garden! Let the sweet peas scramble up obelisks or wigwams where they can reach heights of 1.8m (6”), or try dwarf sweet peas for groundcover at the front of beds and borders. With their rich and delightful fragrance, and wide range of colours, sweet peas are excellent summer bedding plants and can provide bunches of gorgeous fragrant cut flowers throughout summer!

Antirrhinum

Much-loved for their flowery spikes and long-flowering period, Antirrhinums have mouth-like flowers which open when squeezed. Available in a range of colours, snapdragon plants vary in height, from dwarf plants no taller than 25cm (10”) to large plants such as Antirrhinum Royal Bride which reach around 90cm (35”). Dwarf snapdragons can be used in borders and patio containers, and if you are looking for bedding plants that attract bees, Antirrhinums are a great source of nectar.

Begonia

A versatile summer bedding plant, they are loved for their flamboyant and colourful blooms. They also boast an ability to thrive in both sun and shade. Flowering throughout the summer and up to the first frosts, they can be upright or trailing and are suitable for beds, hanging baskets and window boxes.

Californian poppy

This annual is sown directly in beds and borders, and will happily self-seed and create colour year after year. Traditionally orange, there is now a plethora of colours including yellow and red. The blooms are borne above blue-green foliage, and are attractive to bees. Thriving in dry soil, simply scatter the seeds where you want them to flower and they take care of themselves.

Cosmos

The saucer-shaped flowers are a source of late nectar for pollinating insects. The Cosmos’ fern-like foliage adds texture to bedding schemes and works well in an informal cottage-style bed or border. These summer plants are available in shades of pink, red and white with Cosmos Sulphureus offering yellow, orange and red. Cosmos plants begin blooming in mid-summer and flower until autumn.

By Jacob White