Perk up your patio (From Worcester News)

Perk up your patio

3:12pm Monday 31st October 2011 in Gardening

WINTER doesn’t have to be drab and dreary when you’ve cleaned out your summer pots and put late summer bulbs such as dahlias into storage.

There’s still time to plant spring bulbs in pots and if you’re doing that, the best piece of advice is keep it simple. Choose one type of bulb for each pot and you’re likely to have a more eye-catching display than if you mix your bulbs, which probably won’t all flower at the same time.

But there’s a long time between now and spring, so how can you provide some colour in the meantime?

There are a few bits and pieces you can pick up from nurseries and garden centres to fill the gap.

Pink heathers and cyclamen can make a pretty autumn planting scheme and quite an unusual hue from the normal burnt oranges, burgundies and yellows of autumn.

Go for the heather calluna vulgaris Annemarie, with pale pink buds which deepen as they open and are set off by pinkflowering cyclamen hederifolium, with its pretty marbled leaves to lighten the scheme.

Make the most of all the soft amethyst shades, combining them with seasonal blue-green foliage.

Ornamental cabbages are in season, in a mass of sculptural shapes in blues and whites, often tinged with purple.

An ornamental cabbage can make a great focal point for any hanging basket, perhaps teamed with crimson foliage of bugle (ajuga reptans Multicolor).

Alternatively, try the pink and purple shades of a variety of aster novi-belgii, which is compact, bushy and suitable for container planting. If you have a galvanised bucket, the silver will go perfectly with the pinks, purples and blueygreen foliage shades.

Other plants which look great in silver planters include the attractive purple evergreen heuchera Stormy Seas, along with the silver-leaved convolvulus cneorum and pink cyclamen persicum which flowers in autumn or early spring.

Container displays can be enhanced by berries of different colours. Try planting a gaultheria – a hardy, evergreen shrub with small oval glossy green leaves – whose flowers in late spring are followed in autumn by clusters of bright, round fruits in shades of red and pale lilac, white, pink, purple or blue, depending on the variety.

Make the most of winter foliage by planting up hanging baskets with Mexican orange blossom (choisya ternata Sundance), with its bright yellow leaves, contrasting with the dark foliage of gaultheria procumbens, or wintergreen, which produces bright red fruit which lasts through the winter. Other colour can be added with violas, lamium and dark-leaved ivy.

Some plants will be interesting now but will also flourish in other seasons – and if you want low maintenance then you could always choose a perennial to provide year-round interest.

The compact shrub skimmia japonica Rubella has oval-shaped, red-edged leaves and dark-red flower buds which form in autumn and winter, then open in late winter and early spring.

A female clone, such as skimmia japonica Rogersii, planted nearby, will form clusters of red berries which last until the next flush of flowers, while the hermaphrodite skimmia japonica Reevesiana, which can be planted on its own, produces clusters of bright red berries through the cooler months.

Fun autumn colour in pots can also be provided by capsicums of all kind, planted up in traditional terracotta pots. Different varieties of red hot chilli peppers, mixed with rust and orange-coloured pansies can make a wonderful display in a conservatory.

With a little imagination, autumn and winter pots can provide that much-needed splash of colour long after all else has faded.