Many people flock to garden centres in spring, resulting in gardens filled with spring and early summer bloomers. However, by August, these early stars often lose their lustre, leaving behind gaps in borders.
With strategic plant choices and clever maintenance, you can prolong the colour in your garden through August and up to the first frosts, ensuring your garden remains a vibrant tapestry year-round.
Our Tips to Extending the Season of Colour in Your Garden
- Chelsea Chop: Trim back later flowering perennials by about a third in May, coinciding with the Chelsea Flower Show. This promotes bushier growth, sturdier plants, and delays flowering. If you cut half of the stems on a plant, flowering will be spread over a longer period.
- Deadhead: Keep your flowering plants neat by removing faded blooms. This not only maintains tidiness but also encourages repeat flowering.
- Deep Watering: During dry spells, ensure thorough watering of beds and pots to prevent heat stress. Mulching in spring helps conserve water.
- Choose Late Bloomers: Monthly visits to the garden centre are a useful routine. Pick a hardy plant each time, spreading both cost and interest throughout the entire summer. Don’t overlook ornamental grasses, they beautifully weave everything together until trees and shrubs take over with autumn colours.
- Select some evergreen shrubs or topiary to link the seasons together, provide a backdrop to the colourful flowering plants and give structure and interest through the winter.
Our Top Plants for Late Season Colour
Trees & Shrubs:
- Abelia
- Buddleja
- Caryopteris
- Ceratostigma willmottianum
- Clerodendron
- Escallonia
- Eucryphia
- Fuchsia
- Hebe
- Hibiscus syriacus
- Hydrangea
- Hypericum ‘Hidcote’
- Koelreuteria
- Lavatera
- Sophora
- Leycesteria
- Magnolia grandiflora
- Perovskia
- Potentilla
- Roses (repeat flowering varieties)
Climbers:
- Campsis
- Clematis viticella
- C. jackmanii
- C. texensis and other Group 3 Clematis
- Cobea scandens (annual)
- Jasminum officinale
- Lonicera periclymenum
- Mina lobata (annual)
- Passiflora
- Solanum
- Thunbergia (annual)
Perennials:
- Actea
- Agapanthus
- Agastache
- Alstroemeria
- Anemone hupehensis
- A. hybrida
- Anthemis
- Aster
- Astrantia
- Canna
- Ceratostigma plumbaginoides
- Chrysanthemum
- Crocosmia
- Cyclamen hederifolium
- Dahlia
- Echinacea
- Echinops
- Erigeron glaucus
- E. karvinskianus
- Geranium ‘Rozanne’
- Helianthus
- Helenium
- Heliopsis
- Hemerocallis
- Hesperantha
- Hylotelephium (Sedum)
- Liriope
- Lobelia cardinalis
- Monarda
- Nerine
- Penstemon
- Persicaria
- Phlox paniculata
- Phygelius
- Rudbeckia
- Salvia (shrubby types)
- Sanguisorba
- Solidago
- Symphyotrichum (Aster)
- Tulbaghia
- Verbena bonariensis
- V. rigida
- Veronicastrum
Grasses:
- Calamagrostis
- Cortaderia
- Deschampsia
- Hakonechloa
- Imperata
- Miscanthus
- Panicum
- Pennisetum
- Stipa gigantea
- S. tenuissima
This guide focuses on permanent planting like perennials, omitting annual bedding plants due to their sheer variety. However, we would highlight annual cosmos for filling border gaps and blooming for months with regular deadheading.
Continue your Gardening Journey
Need a little extra advice? Visit your local Tates of Sussex Garden Centre today, where our friendly knowledgeable, team will be happy to help you choose the right plants and offer expert guidance.
