Gardening with Mary: pleasing plant combinations

Although grey skies and cooler than normal, overcast days seem more prevalent than usual this summer, thankfully, there are still plenty of bright spots of colour to bring a bit of cheer as our gardens reach their peak of lushness and richness of bloom.

On a wander through the garden, or when I am weeding or deadheading borders to keep displays looking fresh and vibrant, few things are more satisfying than coming across a perfect pairing or combination of plants.

Don’t you love it when you occasionally get to say, “Wow, that worked really well.”

Such is the case in my garden just now with the tall-growing, ornamental grass Miscanthus sinensis ‘Cabaret’ fronted by a lower-level drift of perennial Astilbe ‘Cappucino’.

The long, dark green, ribbon-like leaves of the grass are streaked with white which echoes the frothy, creamy white plumes of the astilbe.

Close by, and in a similar way, dark maroon colouring is the harmonising element between the day lily, Hemerocallis ‘Moussaka’ and Sanguisorba menziesii– both flowering at the same time.

The creamy white, trumpet blooms of the hemerocallis feature heavily ruffled, maroon edges and a maroon eye at the centre.

The colour is perfectly matched by the adjoining intense maroon red, bottlebrush-like flower of the sanguisorba.

Their foliage also works well together with the delicate, blue-grey, feathery foliage of the sanguisorba creating an appealing contrast with the bright green, grass-like leaves of the hemerocallis.

When grouping plants, it’s often a process of trial and error to find pleasing combinations. Sometimes the plants themselves provide helpful pointers.

As per the above examples, I take cues from details of the flowers, foliage and other attributes of a plant to inspire what its ideal partner might be.

I try to combine plants with some similar characteristics that will lead the eye from one plant to the next. The key to designing an effective planting combination is striking a balance between similar and dissimilar plant features.

It’s important to choose plants that have some contrasting elements as those with all the same texture and colour will just blend together, creating little interest. However, if you strive for too much contrast with no common elements, you’ll create visual chaos.

You want to fall somewhere in the middle, balancing enough contrasting and common elements to establish a degree of harmony in your planting combinations.

When it comes to colour, some gardeners like to create borders or planting arrangements using a single-colour scheme, such as all white-flowering plants, perhaps with silver foliage plants or those with white and green variegation.

Such schemes can be strikingly beautiful in their simplicity with contrasting interest coming from varying the textures, shapes and forms of the flowers and foliage.

Others opt for tried and tested combinations of cool blues, purples and pinks with white and silver or a warmer palette that blends reds and oranges with yellows.

Blue and yellow flowers are a classic complementary colour combination for the garden.

It’s a ying-and-yang opposing effect that creates pleasing tension for the eye with yellow being warm and forthright, pushing forward, while cool blues recede or pull back, drawing the eye deeper into a scene.

Texture often takes a backseat to colour for some gardeners, but foliage generally has a more enduring presence than flowers and it is wise to consider a diversity of foliage to create striking textural and colour contrasts to intrigue and draw the eye as well.

Spiky blades of grass, rounded, heavily-veined leaves and dainty, finely-dissected leaves can all play off one another visually to create equally awesome displays in tandem with their floral counterparts.

Deadhead faded flowers

Many hardy perennials, such as lupins and delphiniums along with modern floribunda and hybrid tea roses, will produce a further flush of flowers if you deadhead them as soon as their blooms fade.

Cut back the old flower heads which will be starting to set seed.

Follow the stem down to a healthy leaf or a low shoot and prune just above it. Give each plant a liquid feed. New flower stems will soon start to develop, giving blooms in September or October.

Mary Keenan and Ross Doyle run Gash Gardens, Co. Laois open to the public. www.gashgardens.ie

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