James Alexander-Sinclair - Gardeners World

Contents

About the Book

There is nothing more stunning than a garden bursting with colour. Whether you want glorious borders or striking pots, 101 Bold and Beautiful Flowers is full of plant ideas and aftercare tips. Grouped by colour and with expert advice on each flower, you can find the perfect plant solutions for your garden. With opulent photography accompanying every suggestion, this little book is full of floral inspiration.

Gardeners World Magazine is Britains biggest-bestselling gardening magazine, providing fresh ideas and clear advice every month.

About the Author

Gardeners World Magazine is Britains biggest-selling gardening magazine, providing fresh ideas and clear advice every month. From plants and flowers to gardens and design, allotments and kitchen gardens to shopping guides and tried-and-tested reviews, Gardeners World Magazine features the top names in BBC gardening, such as Monty Don, Alan Titchmarsh, Carol Klein and the Gardeners Question Time team.

Find out more at www.gardenersworld.com

Introduction

Imagine, if you would, an existence without flowers. It would be a joyless world; one with fewer surprises, without unexpected wafts of scent, without bouquets, without romance, without bees or butterflies and, above all, without colour. Everything would look like a rather depressing black-and-white television documentary.

Fortunately we are not in that position, and every day of every year some plant somewhere is flowering its little head off for our pleasure maybe not in your garden, but in your street, a nearby park, a woodland or a hedgerow.

Flowers have the power to lift the spirits and soothe a troubled soul. We at Gardeners World Magazine believe that the best medicine for anyone young or old, with or without a garden is to grow bright, colourful flowers. So in this book we suggest 101 ways in which you can bring bold and beautiful blooms into your life.

So read on, then find a pot or a patch of ground, sow a seed and as it grows and flowers, let it light up your life and the lives of all around you.

James Alexander-Sinclair

Gardeners World Magazine

Dont miss Jamess celebration of favourite flowers in Gardeners World Magazine every month.

Red

Snapdragon

Antirrhinum majus Night and Day

A colourful annual with reddish foliage, ideal for bedding or pots

Flowering time: JulyOctober

To a child these plants hold almost as much fascination as feeding flies to Venus flytraps. The flower resembles the rearing head of a dragon, and if you squeeze each side of it the dragons mouth opens and closes. Not exactly a snap, more of a toothless chomp, but still fascinating to a four-year-old and it could be the starting point for a lifetimes passion for gardening. If you are going to plant snapdragons then plant plenty theres nothing more dramatic than the sight of a sea of blood red lapping around the feet of shrubs in a mixed border or lots and lots in pots. In the official Royal Horticultural Society guide this plant is described as having a hairy palate, which is perhaps not something one would wish upon anybody.

Sow seed under glass any time from August to April. Even if they survive the winter (which they can in some sheltered places), it is best to start again each year with new plants.

Canna

Canna pfitzer Salmon Pink

Exotic-looking tender perennial

Flowering time: JulyOctober

Cannas tend to satisfy the longing for the tropics that many of us have. As we Brits sit at home in August watching the rain lash down on our gardens and ruin the barbecues we had planned, we can at least take a little comfort from the fact that in any short, sunny interval we can admire the majestic, slightly purple leaves of these plants. It is this dramatic foliage that takes us away to a distant land of dense jungle, skittering macaws and ripe paw-paws falling from the trees.

This canna, Salmon Pink, has very large pink flowers that tumble from reddish buds. Only growing to about 1m (3ft) high (there are other, taller, varieties as well), it is best planted en masse with other equally exotic plants, such as ginger lilies (Hedychium) bananas (Musa basjoo) or hardy palm trees.

Rhizomes should be dug up after the first frosts and stored under cover. You can propagate from these by cutting them into short sections in spring, ensuring that each piece has a decent bud.

Pinks

Dianthus Lady in Red

An old-fashioned, but perennially effective edging plant

Flowering time: JuneJuly

Rather like the Chris de Burgh song of the same name, the dianthus is a bit out of fashion. It has been in our gardens for ages (in a seventeenth-century book John Parkinson lists over sixty different garden species), but for some reason it seems to have slipped out of favour. It will be back, though, because its delicate grey foliage and flamboyantly frilled petals make it irresistible.

Pinks come in so many colours that everybody can find one to love (although, as always happens with plants that are easy to hybridise, there are also some pretty hideous confections out there). But their best point is their scent; a mixture of clove and honeycomb with just a splash of lemon.

Get one you really like and you can easily propagate it by removing non-flowering shoots in summer and potting them into good-quality, well-drained compost. Deadhead regularly to prevent plants becoming straggly and to ensure long flowering.

Gloxinia

Gloxinia Glory Mixed

Very colourful, summer-flowering conservatory plant

Flowering time: JulyOctober

It is always a little alarming to see such a striking flower at quite such close quarters. Viewed from a few feet above, the gloxinia is startling, but it is only by getting up close and personal that we understand the full glories of any plant.

The velvet red of this gloxinia is the colour and texture of one of Violet Elisabeth Botts (you remember Miss Bott from the Just William stories) more eye-catching party dresses, with ruffled white edges to each petal. In the centre the stamens twist like a lightbulb filament as if this flower needed to be any brighter. The leaves are dark, bluey-green and feel very slightly fuzzy to the touch.

Gloxinias are very tender, so they are really only suitable for growing in pots kept in a greenhouse or conservatory. Water them freely during the growing season and let them dry off in autumn. Keep out of direct sunlight in summer.