Blue and white borders

Gardening styles come and go them seem to come back again. A few years ago blue and white borders were all the rage, the height of fashion. For the last two years they seem to have disparate from the garden writers and broadcasters view. Despite this laps in fashion blue and white borders can offer the gardener a stunning effect that is easy to achieve on the average garden soil.

On first thoughts blue and white might seem to be a harsh combination, to formal to bright. But when combined using plants the effect is somewhat unexpected. The combination of colour using plants seems to softening the colour combination whilst creating a stunningly bright and refreshing effect.

To create a blue and white border the first task is to prepare the soil. Time spend on the soil preparation is never wasted. The best advice we can give you is to dig in lots of organic mature such as well rotted farm yard manure or spent mushroom compost which can be used on clay soils to great effect.

Planting should consist of 60% white flowering plants, 30% blue flowering plants and the remainder should be silver foliage plants. For best results the plants should be planted in blocks of 3 to 7 plants depending on the size of the border. Try not to plant in a set pattern the border needs to maintain an informal look. The tallest blue flowered plants should be planted in the middle then using some of the white flowered plants plant three sides. Silver plants are best used on the edges.

Plants that can be used with good effect are as follows -

Blue
• Iris - there are many blue forms the bearded iris being the best Caryopteris clandonensis 'heavenly blue'
• Ceanothus - mostly blue flowers with different habbits for a small border ceanothus thyrsiflorus repens is ideal hebe 'Autumn glory' an evergreen shrub blue flowers fron late spring and through most of the summer
• Campanula latifolia - has a spike type flower with whit and blue flowers
• Delphinium pacific group - blue flowers

White
• Iris - there are many white forms the bearded iris being the best
• Aquiegia - many white forms
• Cerastium - tomentosum - carpets of white flowers
• Phlox - many white flowering types
• Arabis - carpeting plant covered in white flowers

Silver
• Artamesia powis castle - soft silver foliage
• Stachys lanata - silver foliage