Bedding Plants and Displays

 A rainbow of summer bedding

Bedding plants 

At this early growing time of the year it’s great to plant the summer bedding. We can grow plants all year for a touch of colour of course, we have pulmonaria, cyclamen, polyanthus, primulas and a whole host of bulbs to choose from. Moving into winter we get wallflowers, primulas and violas.  But the largest selection of border and bedding plants are available at this time of year for summer colour. And the choice can be a little bit overwhelming – in a good way.  

I’m reminded of the time I was at horticultural college. In early spring all the students were given the task of designing a floral summer display for the huge kidney shaped flower bed outside the main entrance that greeted visitors.  The bed was about 30 metres long and ten metres wide and was there to give us practice for designing beds for public parks and gardens. Our task was to decide which plants to use, taking colour, height, flowering time, maintenance and soil needs into consideration. We then had to do mathematical calculations to decide how many of each type of plants we needed then draw out the design plan.  From there we were expected to grow our chosen plants from seeds to maturity under protection ready to plant out. There were twenty of us in the group but only one would get the accolade of having their plan come to reality. Which wasn’t me.   Although I was a bit disappointed that my self-portrait made from cineraria, begonias, petunias and busy lizzies wasn’t  chosen, in hindsight I was pleased that I could take a back seat. 

The design that was chosen came from a lad who eventually ended up working for the college as the parks gardener so they must have liked his design and work ethic. He chose contrasting reds, purples, whites and formed them in a very clever way to keep the kidney shape flowing.  The central focal points were tall tropicanna (black canna) plants which glowed purple  in the sun with vivid red flowers, all of them grown from seed throughout spring, potted on from plugs into 7cm pots and eventually planted out in one day into freshly prepared and loosened soil by the rest of the group.

Today I work on a smaller scale. I don’t tend to grow my own bedding as I only have a few planters to pot up so tend to buy summer bedding when they are reduced to sell in the garden centres.  Buying this way limits the choice somewhat but as I generally just go for petunias and geramiums I generally don’t feel hard done by.

Designing with bedding plants

Some of the larger community bedding areas can be planted up two or three times a year to keep the colour interest. This is called successive planting.

Successional planting:  Generally replanting in late spring (for summer) and early autumn (for winter/spring). However, the highest-maintenance displays require late spring, mid- to late summer and autumn plantings. This this can be done easily in small gardens too.

For replanting twice a year: try the summer combination of begonia, the flowering seedheads of ornamental grassesand late-flowering salvia and verbena. For winter, plant perennials such as bergenia, cyclamen, hellebores and viola to give interesting foliage as well as flower colour during mild spells.

If you are replanting three times a year: plant with tulips and polyanthus for spring; replacing them with nemesia and alyssum for early summer, then cannas and dahlia for late-summer colour. This generally requires well-developed (larger) plants as they have less time to grow and develop in the ground; but can give a fuller display.

Formal bedding: Like the type we were doing at college is used for bold displays in public gardens and sometimes used in smaller ornamental gardens. Formal beds usually consist of neat, symmetrical patterns. Formal planting used for entire beds, in closely planted blocks of colour (often in association with orderly edging plants such as lobelia or even clipped box). 

Informal bedding: Bedding plants can be used less formally in the garden, perhaps to brighten up the front of a border or fill bare soil under roses. Straight lines and symmetrical patterns are not compulsory here – it’s more a case of having fun with colour and textures. Cottage garden plants would look well here.

Carpet bedding: Carpet bedding is the most intensive form of bedding and uses plants that are so compact and tightly knitted that the appearance is akin to a woven carpet. Designs are often technically complex and can include highly intricate displays such as floral clocks, lettering or coats-of-arms. For the home gardener, designs can be much less elaborate and on a smaller scale. I’d plant it out first though for the best results.