Summer Border

Looking for ideas for a beautiful garden? This is the perfect time to check out some summer borders. Many gardens open to the public have huge dramatic borders full of hardy perennials. Most are easy to grow and will thrive in any garden.

Gresgarth Garden in Lancashire opens just once a month. I was lucky enough to see it yesterday. These long twin borders are backed by a yew hedge and overflow with perennials of all shapes and sizes.

The predominant colours are all shades of blue, lilac and purple.
There’s a good mixture of texture and form with some plants forming mounds and other dramatic tall plants forming spires. There are also one or two unexpected plants which act like punctuation marks in the planting scheme. See the red hot poker in this photo.

How does a border of this size relate to a smaller garden?
Not many of us have the space to grow summer flowering perennial plants on this scale but we can all squeeze a few in. I feel inspired when I see a beautiful garden and always leave with new ideas to try at home. It’s good to see how tall particular plants grow and how to combine them with other perennials, grasses and clipped evergreens such as Yew and Box for structure.

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