Daphne Ledward

DAPHNE'S COLUMN

LOOKING FORWARD TO SUMMER BASKETS


Spalding Guardian Gardening 5 January 2012 No sooner than the Christmas cards stop falling on the mat than an avalanche of new gardening catalogues starts pouring through our letterboxes. No sooner than the Christmas cards stop falling on the mat than an avalanche of new gardening catalogues starts pouring through our letterboxes. There was one item in D.T. Brown’s Gardeners’ Selection Spring Catalogue which arrived last week that really did catch my eye, though, and this was a new collection of four basket and container planting combinations. There was nothing unusual in that at first glance; basket and tub collections have been available for years; they work well and take the thinking out of producing really stunning planters. The difference with the Trixie® was in the fact that each collection consisted of three harmonising or contrasting varieties grown in one plug for ease of planting, which should ensure an evenly distributed effect throughout the container. The four combinations are ‘Petticoat’, a mixture of different colours of calibrachoa; ‘Twinkle Star’, combining calibrachoa, bidens and bacopa; ‘Lemon Sorbet’, containing citrus colours in bidens, calibrachoa and petunia; and ‘Big Eye’, a combination of three large-flowered, white eyed verbenas. Now, I haven’t tried these myself, but with 24 baskets to plant up soon, I may give this new concept a go. My one criticism is that the range of plants is somewhat limited; this may be because of difficulties in combining other types of container plant in one plug, or, hopefully, it may just be the tip of the iceberg in a whole new planting concept. To obtain a free copy of D.T. Brown’s Gardeners’ Selection Catalogue, in which you will also find some very interesting fruit and vegetable plants and collections, write to D.T. Brown, Western Avenue, Matrix Park, Chorley, Lancs PR7 7NB, telephone 0845 3710532, or visit < a href="http://www.dtbrownseeds.co.uk" target="blank">www.dtbrownseeds.co.uk Daphne Ledward This piece originally appeared in the Spalding Guardian