RHS Journals
The Garden
March 2007
For dawn and dusk
Planting containers to follow a theme often proves effective. Phil Clayton looks at pots, devised by contributors and RHS staff, to represent night and day.
Images: Tim Sandall
Faced with the overwhelming array of annuals, tender perennials and other plants offered for containers, picking an harmonious selection for your own potted displays can be bewildering.
It always helps me to have a cohesive approach from the start, both to assist in initial plant selection, and later to bind planting together. Many people choose according to colour, but other themes can be effective. A good rule is to pick a simple idea, something that can be easily represented using plants in pots.
Personal interpretations
A group of us thought that a theme of night and day would allow varied interpretation. Should we choose sultry flower and foliage colours to represent darker hours, or pick pale blooms that will show up better in pots at night? Combinations for daytime are perhaps more obvious. Bright colours, especially yellows, generally seem fitting. The rayed flowers of some daisies such as Osteospermum and Coreopsis fancifully appear to resemble the sun. Some flowers open in morning, closing later in the day - scrambling Ipomoea (morning glory), for example.
It is feasible to plan a collection of containers. Those to be seen in day might be placed by the front door, the better to admire as you leave or enter the house; containers planted for evening might be grouped on the patio for you to enjoy at the end of the day.
Members of the editorial team at The Garden, together with Dean Peckett, Superintendent at RHS Garden Harlow Carr, and Alan Gray at East Ruston Old Vicarage in Norfolk, enjoyed trying a few ideas of their own. Why don’t you test your ingenuity too?
Ian Hodgson (Editor, The Garden) used similar-looking plants in contrasting colours. His night pot (left) included purple Cordyline, red Coreopsis ‘Limerock Ruby’, trailing bronze Ipomoea, Penstemon ‘White Bedder’ and grass Pennisetum glaucum ‘Purple Majesty’. The day pot (right) had variegated Cordyline, lime green Ipomoea, gold Coreopsis verticillata ‘Moonbeam’ and striped Spartina grass.
Chris Young (Deputy Editor, The Garden) planted a pair of containers. Plants for night (left) included climbing Thunbergia ‘Lemon Star’, purple-leaved Strobilanthes dyeriana, nicotiana and a tumbling white Scaevola. The day pot (right) used climbing Ipomoea, Plectranthus argentatus ‘Hill House’ and a yellow Osteospermum. Both his pots included grass Eragrostis elliottii ‘Wind Dancer’ for continuity.
Alan Gray (East Ruston Old Vicarage, Norfolk) planted this grandiose container (left) to capture the mood of early morning. Yellow violas peep through tresses of Carex comans ‘Frosted Curls’, while sky-blue spikes of Salvia farinacea complement the steely blades of grass Leymus arenarius. Dahlia ‘Clarion’ contributes purple foliage and flowers of scorched yellow. Atop this half-light of daybreak are Euphorbia ceratocarpa, with heads of little yellow-green bracts, and Tibouchina urvilleana with silky foliage and mauve blooms.
Evening style
Pale flowers and silver or variegated foliage have impact after dark; some plants such as night-scented stock produce flowers with evening scent; others such as Datura inoxia have blooms opening in evening.
Phil Clayton’s pot included scented white petunias, silvery helichrysum and artemisia, backed by Acer negundo ‘Flamingo’ (left). Dean Peckett from Harlow Carr used lilies, white Gaura and Gypsophila with wispy Stipa and variegated Miscanthus (right). Candlelit lanterns were added to both, enhancing the nocturnal effect.
Phil Clayton is Features Development Editor for The Garden
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