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The quickest way to add a blaze of colour to your garden is to plant up bedding plants which are ready-grown seedlings of summer-flowering annuals that are available in trays containing 12, 24, or even 100 seedlings. Sure-fire winners such as marigolds and gazanias are a must-have as they reward you with gorgeous colour throughout summer. Visit your local garden centre this weekend and choose from the many brightly coloured varieties available.
Marigold
These reliable, long lasting and heat-tolerant annuals range in height from 15cm to a metre tall with single or double cream, lemon, gold, orange or copper flowers. Many of the modern cultivars do not have the same pungent scent as older varieties. These great performers flower so generously that you can hardly see the foliage.
Uses: Dwarf marigolds are useful for edging paths, tall varieties for borders. They brighten rockery pockets, containers and hanging baskets, and can be grown between rows in the vegetable garden, where they are a deterrent to nematodes in the soil.
Needs: Marigolds need full sun and composted, well-drained soil.
Tip! Pinching off the first three or four buds will encourage bushier growth.
Look out for: ‘Vanilla’, an unusual cream-coloured hybrid.
Gazania
The leaves of this indigenous bedding plant are grey-green and grow in a neat cluster. Numerous hybrids are available with large blooms that are red, orange, pink, yellow, cream, white or bicoloured. Gazania hybrids flower continuously from spring to late autumn.
Uses: Decorative edging or front-of-the-border plants, as a ground cover, in rockeries and containers. Provides masses of colour in an indigenous garden.
Needs: Full sun all day. Although water wise and tolerant of poor soils, gazanias do best in well composted soil that drains well. Regular – but not frequent – watering promotes blooming.
Tip! When in flower, low growing gazanias are 10cm tall with a similar spread so plant close together for best effects.
Look out for: The large bloomed ‘Day Break’ gazania hybrids.
Tips for success
To get maximum flowering from your bedding plants follow these tips:
- At planting time, mix masses of compost and a controlled release fertiliser into the soil. Add some planting fertiliser or bonemeal to the soil to aid in strong root development.
- Fertilise your bedding plants every two weeks with a liquid fertiliser.
- Remove faded flowers to prevent plant growth from slowing down.
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Gazanias and marigolds are champions of the summer border - they are both tough plants that offer months of glorious colour