It's something I often talk about on this blog...planting combinations. Lots of plants are beautiful on their own, but like most things in life they're even better in a team. Many of the 'teams' in my garden are accidental, some are planned. And I'm pleased to say a lot of them are looking bloody lovely at the moment! This is a delightful pairing I spotted this morning. A self-seeded Californian poppy nestling against a self-seeded Lamium. Divine!
What I now think are Toadflax are everywhere in the garden, much to my glee! Here they are looking scrummy next to a self-sseded corn poppy and also one of our Cirsiums...
Some of the combinations, while made up of perennials, are still unexpected. These Garnet Penstemons (grown from cuttings) are suddenly looking lovely next to Geranium Black Beauty, which is much taller this year than ever before and poking it's flowers up above Euphorbia polychroma (another lovely combination!)
Penstemon garnet is also matching up nicely with Geum Totally Tangerine, again two perennials, but I didn't really plan their surprisingly pleasing juxtaposition.
Elsewhere, in the heart bed, my Oenothera 'Apricot Delight' (which just goes with everything!) is suddenly off-setting Sisyrinchium 'Quaint and Queer' fantastically well. The latter has suddenly opened, with its funny little chocolately-violet, stripey star flowers on the end of its spike grass-like arms. It was weeding the other day that I suddenly remembered I'd bought this unusual little plant from Beth Chatto last year and started to get very excited about its reappearance in the garden! After weeks of waiting, it's absolutely living up to my memory of it from last year as a little dazzler!
And while lots of the most eye-catching combinations in the garden are perennials, the annuals are putting on a good show as well. My favourites are the Chocolate Cosmos (Ok, half-hardy perennial!) and Orlaya Grandiflora which I've got next to each other in pots...looking very pretty...
I'm also finding that various grasses are complementing the plants next to them rather well! The blood grass which contrasted nicely with some Alchemilla mollis in an earlier blog post, is also looking lovely next to a new Sedum my Nanny got me. It didn't have a label in, but I think it's the same as another one in my garden (now I've just got to find its label - my plant database is horribly behind at the moment!)
And one of my absolute favourites is Scabiosa columbaria ochroleuca combined with Eragrostis Curvula 'Totnes Burgundy'. They're both from Beth Chatto's nursery and it was while they were sitting in the trolley as I waited to pay that I realised how well matched they were. Now they're both thriving in the heart-bed in the front garden (to be honest they're both a bit too big and unruly to be in there, but they're too happy, hale and hearty...not to mention gorgeous...to move!) The whispy seed-heads of the grass blow amidst the airy yellow blooms of the scabious. It's a match made in heaven.
Stipa Tenuissima is lovely to view things through. I've got some by the back door and the little, exuberant flowers of the Californian poppies twinkle through the mass of grass blades and seeds...
It also provides a good hiding place for little treasures like this self-seeded Viola 'Sawyer's Black'. These Violas keep turning up everywhere and I accidently dug this one up when I was lifting some tulips. So we've rehomed it by the back door, shyly retiring beneath the Tenuissima and peeping out.
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