Plant advice

Insane_Drifter

Hiya i am trying to brighten up my garden what are the best,longest lasting reasonable priced plants please?

All advice appreciated

annie123

Depends on sun, shade, soil, hot, cool areas, annuals, perennials etc etc
Begonias are a possibility, they were 30 for £30 in b & q last week, flower all summer until the first frosts, and I've found them to be not fussy on where they are grown.
hth

heynonnynonny

Have a look on BBC plant finder, you can put all your requirements in eg when it flowers, colour, sun or shade etc, excellent tool.

jaxx46

Pansies mine have been going forever !! even came back after being buried under 6 inches of snow.

cootambear

strawberries, minimal care, give flowers and fruit

stumpycat

One idea that's always suggested for starting a garden is to buy something (perennial) that's in flower each month - so you have year round colour.

I use a skinflint version of this and buy something that's just past flowering and is reduced! It works just the same! :rotfl:

Insane_Drifter

Thats great!! Thankyou all for your advice

Joly_Roger

Definitely perennials. More expensive to buy than annuals and generally look dull in their pots at the garden centres, but once they've been growing for a few months and take shape you can admire the diverse range of foliage and flowers they create in your garden.

Also, perennials should last forever, unlike bedding plants which will be gone by the first frost so you have to dig them out, then compost them and then start over again next year and the year after... So your garden never really matures and you have to keep on buying them every year.


I save bedding plants just for hanging baskets and window boxes as they can't be beaten for the amount of flowers they create.

dogstarheaven

annuals that self-seed freely - calendula (pot marigold), borage, poppy, love-in-a-mist, Verbena bonariensis, Forget-Me-Nots. these come back yr after yr. some are quite invasive, but they're all v pretty tho. just buy a plant of each (no difference in price to a packet of seed. forget me nots are not usually around this time of yr as they're early spring flowers. the others should be in good garden centres). make sure you pick off all the deadflowers as they appear but remember to leave some seed heads intact (or bag them up, and sow in the spring). these will dry off naturally on the plant and fall onto the soil and overwinter and then in spring you'll have zillions of the above all over the shop! one tip - don't disturb the soil in spring or else these emerging young seedlings would be damaged. you will need to do a lot of weeding regularly, but if you're new to gardening, then you'll not recognise the weed seedlings from your flower seedlings. you can post them on here for us to ID if you wish.

hope this helps

ps. bluebells are v invasive, but a much welcome colour in the late april garden. they do well in shade as well as sun..

SallyForth_2

Poppies, Aquilieja, Viola's - self seed everywhere. Sedum, spreads itself around, Clematis, Hardy Fushia's you can make more by taking cuttings, and don't forget the endless selection of bulbs.

cootambear

Some perennial herbs flower nicely to. And you can eat them. I never plant anything I cant eat lol. Alpine strawberries have nice flowers.