How can we possibly choose?? The ups and downs of plant border choice.

This is the exact question we were asking ourselves when we were choosing the plants in our first border collection. We knew what we wanted, something for a sunny position, drought tolerant and low maintenance. We sat together with our coffees and laptops and set about choosing the plants from our supplier.

We had a good idea of some that we definitely wanted and that we had grown before, and that’s where the Calamagrostis came in, we just had to get the “Karl Foerster” variety in there! I had grown some in my previous garden and since moving house, have struggled to find it in the local garden centres. I knew it was a good seller too, from back in the garden centre management days! 

Ok, grass chosen, now onto Clare’s favourite- Verbena bonariensis, and I had to agree, it needed to go in. We want to give people plants that make them happy and we got a lot of call for “tall purple plants” when asking people about plant preferences early on. 

We then worked almost down in height, but this is where it got really hard, how could we possibly choose!! Still to this day there’s more plants we would pop into the border, but just had to narrow it down, so went with some firm favourites and plants that we had grown before.

Echinacea- easy choice, not so easy to narrow down the variety! We have a mix of 9cm and 2L pots in the border and we were aiming for just 9cm’s so that we could keep the selling price as low as possible, but we just had to get this 2L variety in! Dark contrasting stems, vibrant deep pink flowers, these will pop up like jewels amongst the other plants, so we are very happy to see them make the cut!

Then we just had to squeeze in some Alliums! We chose a nice tall variety to give you a great pop of purple! Another classic cottage garden plant, with drought tolerance and low maintenance- Salvia! So many salvias, purple ones, pink ones, tall ones, bushy ones... But we landed on Caradonna- I just love this variety, tall strong stems with the most vibrant purple, giving such a display of colour and honestly, they look outstanding against the other plants! 

Who doesn’t love a lupin? I don’t think a cottage style garden could be complete without one, and we’ve chosen 'The Chatelaine' variety from the Russells hybrids, bred for their long flowering period and strong and bright colours. This variety flowers pink and white! 

We wanted to add some lighter coloured plants in with the pinks and purples, so we opted for Leucanthemums. I've grown them in my previous gardens and I just loved how reliable they were. The leaves are strong and the flowers are just sensational. What I love most about these, especially the “Broadway Lights” variety is that they flower later in summer into Autumn and on a warm summer's night, as light is getting low, they almost look like they are lit up! Like little lights in the border, adding a daisy like aesthetic to the garden. 

Another white showstopper in the garden is the Campanula, such a classic in any cottage style garden. We chose the “Persicifolia alba” variety for its prolific white bell shaped flowers, it’ll add a gorgeous white pop of colour in the mid to tall section of the border.

We are nearly at the front of the border now, just two other plants to squeeze in… 

We went back and forth with these too, as there’s so many amazing plants to choose from, but we went with the classic mexican fleabane aka Erigeron karvinskianus profusion. A perfect addition for the front of the border, creating a dense mat of leaves and pink-to-white daisy like flowers throughout summer. Generally disease and pest free, this garden staple is perfect for sunny spots, being drought tolerant they require pretty much no maintenance, just a spring haircut! 

To go with the Erigeron, we wanted something that is a little earlier flowering, so that we can maximise the flowering time of the border. We chose the unstoppable Aubretia, for a pop of vivid purple early colour, that will tolerate low maintenance.

So that’s how we chose, eventually we had to stop saying “what about this plant”, because we knew we had selected a great selection of cottage style plants, that are low maintenance, that flower together and some early and some later, to give you a long interest time. And hopefully we have taken the headache from you. You can buy our selection knowing we have done the hard work for you. Know nothing about plants? That’s great- we don’t expect you to- you plant these and have a little read of our planting guide and after care tips and away you go! And… you get to take the credit for planting them, so you really can show off to your friends, family, neighbours, the postman or anyone else you drag into your garden to admire your handy work!

Abi x