Planning Complementary Planting

Are there any resources you would recommend for choosing plants that will look good together? My need includes Herbaceous and Shrubs (but trees, autumn colour, spring bulbs etc. would be good to get ideas for too).

I have the Hillier Gardener's Guide - Shrubs which has good information on plants, but also on planting combinations. I see that there are a number of other titles in that series

Gertrude Jekyll's Colour Schemes for the Flower Garden maybe?

Maybe I should just Google some pictures (keep getting Companion Planting [vegetables] though ...)

 

Following a recommendation by Peter, I got this book, Best Borders. It's brilliant - lots of wonderful pictures, advice and ideas, using a series of very different sorts of herbaceous borders, that also include shrubs. I found it on eBay for an absurdly small amount.

 

One approach that I have used is to have a colour scheme. For me it was cool colours pink, blue, purple etc - but no yellow or hot red. Any plants within that scheme seem to associate well. But you have still got plant size, shape and flowering period to think about.

But looking at pictures is an excellent way. The book that SussexG mentioned has lovely pictures and also has some planting plans naming the plants used. I don't think there is anything wrong in copying a plan that has already been worked out over a period of time by a talented gardener.

 

Hello Kristen

My favourite book is Christopher Lloyd's 'Well-Tempered Garden'. He was well known for his open approach to planting using any colour if it fitted his needs at the time - at the same time he was probably the most respected of gardeners and gardening writers.

The book covers all sorts of planting together with advice on propogation which is also very interesting. Gertrude Jekyll famously planted he 'white border' at Sissinghurst which attracted a lot of attention and was copied by many.

 

Thanks Chaps. Best Borders looks like a cracking book, thanks. Googling around I found "Encyclopedia of Planting Combinations" by the same author Tony Lord, which sounds right up my street!, and whilst I know of Christopher Lloyd I wasn't aware of that book, (and haven't been to see Great Dixter either :O) thanks.

"... but no yellow or hot red"

I've used Pastel colours in the past, but we were very taken with the Red border at Hidcote, which was Red flowers and Purple foliage - including a couple of Sambucus - Black Lace and Black Beauty I think, and some Purple-leaved cannas; red flowers from Lobelia Queen Victoria, probably the Cannas had red flowers too; some red Dahlias too (pictures on My Blog about half way down the page)

 

I have looked at your lovely pictures Kristen. Hidecote is a place I would love to see.

I meant to say that it doesn't all have to be pastel shades - you can have that in one part of the garden and a hot border in another part. Reds can fall into two categories - yellow reds and blue reds, and I wouldn't class all of those in your pictures as yellow reds.

I hadn't heard of Tony Lord's "Encyclopedia of Planting Combinations". But I like him so much that I will keep an eye open for it - thank you.

 

Hope I don't wind up bidding against you on eBay !!

 

The red double border at Hidcote is featured in Best Borders.

I've already used one of the ideas in that book when planning my newest 'cool' border - lots of purples, blue and pinks with just a dash of red.

 

That's "cool" in the Young sense, is it? meaning "hot" in this case? :hehe:

The booklet / guide you can buy when visiting Hidcote has a planting plan for the Red Border (from a specific year, previously, I would guess ... but handy nonetheless)

 

'Cool' in that it gets considerably less sun than the other 'hot' side of the garden:gnthb:

 

What a cracking read that is turned out to be, many thanks for the suggestion. I've dipped into the general planting advice, hedges and seed sowing. Fascinating. Would not have though that I could learn new tips on the basics of planting a tree - like not digging the hole in advance for winter planting - because the hole and the pile of soil next to it will be colder as a result, and the tree suffer from shiver-my-timbers (that last bit is my prose, not Lloyd's, 'coz I know you all like my jokes :hehe

On hedging: I've been struggling to justify the cost of Yew plants for a hedge I want to plant this Autumn. Lloyd says he thinks that Yew for hedging should be planted at 3' centres. I've got to persuade myself that this is the right thing to do, as yet, but it certainly WOULD be what I would do if planting 5' tall plants ... so why not 18" plants too? On that basis I can take out every-alternate-one from the yew hedge I planted 3 years ago and have enough plants without buying any more (that might just be enough to persuade me that Lloyd's recommended planting distance is correct!!)

I did go a bit mad though, and bought 13 books to help me with plant combinations. I managed to get them all new, or nearly new, mostly hardback, for just a quid or two each from Amazon's Marketplace (the bind being that its £2.75 per book for postage), but I'm chuffed to have got hardbacks for so little, and they will last longer than paperbacks. Several came from Oxfam and similar charities, and a few other are ex-libraries books that clearly haven't been read more than a couple of times ... their loss, my gain ... so I've done some recycling too.

(I've got Best Borders in the pile, but not looked at that as yet.)