Summer Flower Border Ideas from Garden Visits

Summer flower border ideas are gleaned from various garden visits, to whet your appetite for a glorious display of your own.

Whilst this is a largely pictorial profusion of summer flowers, there are plenty of tips to help you achieve a similar look in your own garden. The styles are predominantly English Cottage Garden and Edwardian with clever twists to bring them up to date. There are historic gardens which may be restrained to certain types of planting and gardens that are not.

So many people sigh and expect their garden to go downhill from late July that I felt I had to show you that it doesn’t need to be so. There are plenty of annual flowers, herbaceous perennials and flowering shrubs to keep you and the bees happy right through summer months.

Where is your summer flower border situated?

Does it have a wall, fence or hedge as a backdrop? This backdrop may affect some of your plant choices because of the colour, for example a very terracotta coloured brick wall. Or for practical reasons; a conifer hedge is going to be thirsty, so plants that like damp roots are not going to thrive.

Perhaps your border will be viewed from all angles. These central borders are also referred to as island beds; you often see them in front gardens and public parks. Your question here is whether it should form a visual barrier, or would you like to see over as well as through the planting?

Ightham Mote (above) Privy Garden, Hampton Court Palace (below)

Single Flower Summer Planting Schemes

If you love a particular flower, then why not devote part or all of a border to it? With tuberous perennials such as dahlias you have a choice of foliage colour, flower colour and flower shape. This will give you enough variety within the scheme to keep it interesting.

You could of course keep to a certain type of dahlia – the ‘Bishop’ series perhaps, all with dark foliage. Against a pale fence or light green hedge these would look stunning. Dahlias are likely to need support of some sort. Add this early in the season so the plants grow around it and hide the hoops and sticks. Or use a decorative support and let it be a part of the scheme, attractive in itself.

Or go with tradition and have a rose border or rose garden. With modern repeat flowering roses, you can indeed have scented blooms all summer long. Check out our rose garden blogs for ideas.(see links below)

rose gardens, Greenwich Park (above), Southsea (below)

Hot Colour Ideas for a Summer Flower Border

Oranges and reds are guaranteed to make you feel warm, whether the sun is shining or not!

Wakehurst (above), Ightham Mote ( both below)

Remember that hot colours move towards you, visually. In smaller gardens where the whole garden is seen at once, you may want to place them at the top end. Use cooler colours further away to make the garden seem bigger. Or not. You may feel like filling your whole garden with bright flowers from June to September.

You could have red flowered Salvias as a mainstay as they’ll flower throughout this time. Whereas Crocosmia will be stunning when in flower, but they do spend most of their time as sword-like leaves. Plant some Californian poppies as here for earlier colour and Rudbeckia to continue the colour with orange and bronze once the Crocosmia has finished blooming. To get the full benefit of Day lilies, plant en masse, and have another plant in front or behind to take over when their show is done.

Loseley Park (above) Holehird (below)

Summer Flower Border Plants for Maritime Gardens

I have explored plants for seaside gardens in another blog. But it doesn’t harm to mention them again; many of us live on or near the coast. If you wanted a maritime theme for your summer flower border, blue and white flowers are a good place to start.

And it may surprise you how many flowering shrubs tolerate a salty air. Try growing Perovksia (Russian sage) Olearia, Potentilla, Fuchsia and Lavender.

Architectural Flowering Plants

Some of these may not flower for long but may have seed heads or decorative foliage to extend their interest. Mixed with other, more floriferous plants you could have a wonderful, statuesque summer border.

Ightham Mote

Depending on the size of your border, try Cirsium rivale (purple thistle) Macleaya cordata (plume poppy), Canna, Cardoon. These will add a great sense of the vertical to your scheme. In smaller spaces use obelisks and trellis to support climbers.

Cool Colours and Soft Planting

Cool colours and soft planting can offer a dreamy, romantic planting scheme. Using taller plants, especially ornamental grasses, enable these planting designs to soften a boundary fence or wall.

Chiddingstone Castle

They also work as semi-barriers when your flower border is centrally placed. The view through is partially blocked, adding an air of mystery. And yes, ornamental grasses do have flowers, even if they’re not showy ones!

Brockwell Park

Cream, white, blue, pale pink, lilac would be the flower colours to use. If the border is a sunny one, you could add silver-grey foliage plants to increase the effect. For those who see their flower borders in the evening, this has the advantage of being a more visible colour palette.

Summer Flower Border Ideas – Mixing it up

Sometimes the most unlikely colour combinations work. Bright clashing colours can make a desirable combination; usually the trick is to use plenty of green as a counterpoint. If you’re going to mix yellow and pink, choose a yellow with orange / red tones or a pink with grey/ yellow. Not sure what I mean? Check out a colour wheel for ideas!

Charleston Farmhouse (above) Ightham Mote (below)

But if you have an artist’s eye you could be bold and just go for it. If it doesn’t work, you can always try something else next year. But take photos and let me see, there may be a simple design trick that will turn it into something stunning!

Or Keeping it to One Colour

There are shades within a colour, so for example, orange could be soft or vibrant. And using different type of plant will give you different shades of a colour. If it’s a white garden you hanker after, have a read of our blog for ideas.

Wakehurst

You could extend the ‘one colour’ to similar tones. For example, in the photo below, the agapanthus and penstemon complement each other.

Annual Flowers that Bloom all Summer

Well, not quite all summer, but for a good few weeks if you choose your annuals correctly. This can be an economical way to fill a summer border with colour.

Choose hardy annuals and sow seeds directly into the ground. It often helps to sow in large clumps of one flower so when it comes to weeding you feel confident that you’re not pulling up flowers by mistake!

Batemans

Edge with a low growing hedge, Buxus, Thyme, Lavender, for example to give a smart finish to your scheme.

Your Summer Flower Border – what next?

What other ideas for beautiful and scented summer flowers for borders are there? To which the answer is “many”! Depending on your soil, aspect (sunny or shady), your garden style, how much maintenance you want to do and your budget for achieving this will affect both the initial planting design and the finished effect.

Ah yes, maintenance. It is important to remember that flowers are living things and will turn to seed. Sometimes that can enhance your border display, but you may also need to deadhead regularly to keep the plant producing more flowers. And weed, of course.

Charleston Farmhouse

It is too late in the season to get the full, lush planting of a mature herbaceous border. But you could still achieve a very satisfying display this year. Many of the flowers will continue blooming into early October. A quick fix is therefore possible for you to achieve.

If you’d prefer help with putting together a planting design of summer garden flowers, then do get in touch with us. Planting designs by Plews are practical works of art; fragrant and frequently edible. We would be creating a scheme with you for next year, but early planning can be a good thing. For example, is the area in question currently filled with weeds…?

I hope this whirl of pictorial inspiration has been an enjoyable way to pass your time. Why not dip into the blogs below for more gardening tips and ideas?