Fiery coloured border plants
Bright yellow, toasty orange and fire engine red. Border plants in fiery colours set your border aflame. The look of a ‘hot’ border is visually very exciting. So how daring are you?
Explosion
Border plants in fiery colours: are you daring enough to take the plunge? If you do, you’ll be rewarded time and again with an explosion of colours in your garden. After all, perennial these plants emerge again every year after the winter. Create a hot border in a location where you can view it from your house. This way, you can enjoy a heartwarming display of colour even on a drizzly afternoon.
What’s in a name?
The names of some border plants are giveaways as to their fiery colours. Good examples are Burning Love (Lychnis chalcedonica), Phlox (Greek for ‘flame’), Sneezeweed – if you believe looking at the sun makes you sneeze (Helenium), Lysimachia ciliata ‘Firecracker’, and Lampwick Plant (Phlomis). Obviously, these will be perfect for the hot border. Yet there are many more fiery coloured border plants to choose from. Yarrow varieties (Achillea) are available in yellow, orange and red. There are even ornamental grasses in fiery colours; Japanese Blood Grass (Imperata cylindrica ‘Red Baron’) is one of them. Crocosmia, a cormous plant, will also feel right at home among other fiery-coloured plants.
Playing with colours
Once you get the hang of it, playing with colours in the garden is really fun. What about using border plants with flowers in contrasting colours? Using complementary colours (colours opposite to one another on the colour wheel) creates excitement. A good example would be to place an orange-flowering border plant such as Avens (Geum) next to blue irises. Not yet exactly what you wanted? Then play around with other fiery-coloured border plants!
Tips
- Adding tall flowering plants such as Torch Lily (Kniphofia) will reinforce the hot look of a hot border.
- Flowering border plants in fiery colours will also attract many bees and butterflies. Would you like to watch butterflies fluttering in your garden from early spring to late autumn? If so, make sure not to limit yourself to hot colours but also not to flowering periods.
- Repeat the colours in your hot border in your garden furniture and accessories such as cushions and candles. If you really want to go all out, paint a fence in a fiery hue.
- You can also use border plants in fiery colours to fill pots. Combine flowering perennials with perennial foliage plants such as Silver Sage (Artemisia) or Lamb’s Ear (Stachys byzantina ‘Big Ears’) and ornamental grasses.
