Plant Solutions. Nigel Colborn
with the vigorous Verbena ‘Homestead Purple’.
Sutera (syn. Bacopa)
Tender annuals or perennials
South African plants with bushy but trailing or sprawling habit and slightly toothed triangular or rounded leaves. The flowers are tiny – forget-me-not sized – but are produced in profusion through much of summer. Pastel shaded cultivars include ‘Blue Showers’, ‘Lilac Showers’ and ‘Pink Domino’. White forms include ‘Snowstorm’, ‘Snowflake’ and Sutera cordata ‘Blizzard’.
Soil preference: Any
Aspect: Sun
Season of interest: Summer
Height and spread: 10cm × 45cm (4in × 1ft 6in)
Companion plants: Suteras have become standard basket and window box plants and will mix with practically anything. They are ideal for softening edges and disguising pot sides, making excellent companions for erect varieties of pelargonium and fuchsias.
Other good bedding plants
Lathyrus odoratus Dwarf varieties
Sweet Pea Hardy annual
Most have the attributes of climbing sweet peas – fragrance, colourful blossoms, good cutting value – but dwarf plants need minimal support. Varieties include ‘Snoopea’, which lacks tendrils and has a prostrate but bushy habit, ‘Bijou Mixed’ and the dwarf ‘Cupid Mixed’. Colours run through pink, purples and white. Excellent for containers.
Soil preference: Any fertile, free-draining but moisture-retentive
Aspect: Sun
Season of interest: Summer
Height and spread: Variable to 30cm (1ft)
Companion plants: Effective in small bedding schemes alongside leafy plants such as Senecio cineraria or as part of a mixed container, with Nemesia or Torenia.
Heliotropium arborescens
Heliotrope, Cherry Pie Tender shrub, grown as bedding
A rounded shrub, in the forget-me-not family with handsome oval and deeply veined leaves that are often purple-tinged. Large heads of tiny, rich purple flowers which smell sweetly of vanilla. When used in bedding, heliotropes can be trained as standards or pruned and pinched back to sustain bushiness. Fine varieties include ‘Princess Marina’, whose flowers are deep purple-blue, ‘Chatsworth’, slightly paler purple and also very fragrant, and ‘White Lady’.
Soil preference: Any
Aspect: Sun
Season of interest: Summer
Height and spread: To 90cm × 60cm (3ft × 2ft)
Companion plants: The classic ‘dot’ plant of Victorian bedding, useful for giving height to beds of impatiens, petunias or to contrast strongly with French marigolds.
Nicotiana mutabilis ‘Marshmallow’
Tobacco Plant Tender perennial
This plant has large, floppy leaves which are sticky to the touch above which grows a mass of branched, slender stems bearing trumpet-shaped flowers which open white and gradually flush to a pale and then a deep cherry pink. Each flower has a dark eye and in the evening, exudes a delicious fragrance.
Soil preference: Any, fertile and free-draining
Aspect: Sun
Season of interest: Summer
Height and spread: 1.2m × 75cm (4ft × 2ft 6in)
Companion plants: Big, bold bedding plants, ideal to soften the harshness of large dahlias or to intersperse among Verbena bonariensis for a light, airy effect.
Viola x wittrockiana
Small-flowered Violas Hardy perennial or biennial
Neat, mat-forming perennials or biennials with slightly lobed, heart-shaped leaves and stems which are square in section. A constant run of small, pansy flowers is produced in a vast range of colours and patterns, ranging through blues, mauves, yellow, orange, purples and to almost black or tan red. Many have bi-coloured blooms or monkey faces; all have a sweet-sharp, honey fragrance.
Soil preference: Any reasonably fertile, not too dry
Aspect: Sun or part shade
Season of interest: Year round
Height and spread: Variable to 20cm × 30cm (8in × 1ft)
Companion plants: Adaptable to any situation – in containers, beds, rock gardens or even lining vegetables in a kitchen garden. Especially effective with spring bulbs or over-wintered plants such as polyanthus, primroses or wall flowers.
Verbena ‘Blue Lagoon’
Verbena Tender perennial
Oval, toothed leaves and semi-trailing stems which produce a summer-long succession of umbels bearing true blue flowers. Said to be resistant to mildew – a bugbear disease for bedding verbena – and to have sweet fragrance. A seed-raised series, but can be propagated from cuttings or divisions.
Soil preference: Fertile and free-draining
Aspect: Sun
Season of interest: Summer, autumn
Height and spread: 25cm × 30cm (10in × 12in)
Companion plants: An excellent container plant to trail with such gold-leaf companions as Lamium ‘Golden Anniversary’ or with Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea’.
Zaluzianskya capensis
Night Phlox Tender annual
A member of the foxglove family which looks more like a pink or a campion! Sticky foliage on bushy plants is joined, in summer, by starry flowers with twin-lobed petals, which are crimson on the reverse, but white on their upper surfaces. The flowers open more fully at night when they become sweetly fragrant.
Soil preference: Any free-draining
Aspect: Sun
Season of interest: Summer
Height and spread: To 60cm × 45cm (2ft × 1ft 6in)
Companion plants: Try fusion planting, growing these South African beauties along with the equally sweetly scented and nocturnal Marvel of Peru or Mirabilis jalapa, and with tobaccos.
Begonia semperflorens
Tender perennial