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From lupins to geraniums, add instant impact to your garden
Looking to fill gaps in your garden quickly? These easy-to-plant perennials will bring colour, texture, and instant impact to your outdoor space right until autumn — and now is the perfect time to plant them.
'June is a brilliant time to refresh your borders, fill the gaps, and introduce long-lasting colour to your garden. With soil warmed and the daylight at its peak, many perennials establish quickly and will reward you with blooms well into late summer and beyond. You are essentially establishing your garden for years to come,' says Ross Dyke, horticultural expert at Pelargonium For Europe.
'A well-planned June planting scheme can carry your garden through the entire summer. Focus on hardy perennials for structure and longevity, and use the tenter more scented plants like pelargoniums to add a burst of colour where needed.'
Before you reach for your trowel, take a look at the best perennials to plant in June:
According to Richard Barker, horticultural expert and commercial director of LBS Horticulture, June is a great time to plant colourful, towering lupins.
'Plant lupins in well-draining soil in groups of three or five for the best effect. New plants should be watered well for the first few months until they are established, and taller varieties may need to be staked or supported,' says Richard.
'Once the flowers fade, deadhead the plants and cut them back to ground level, as this can encourage a second flush of flowers. In autumn, all growth should then be cut back to the ground, and always wear gloves when handling lupins.'
With tall, yellow flower spikes, verbascums (also known as mulleins) are brilliant evergreen perennials that provide a real feast for bees.
'Verbascums are easy to grow and do not need a lot of care when established, but cutting down flowering stems to ground level can prolong flowering,' says Richard. 'Many varieties will also self-seed, and you can save this to plant in autumn or spring.'
This daisy-like perennial brings rich, warm colours to every garden. For June planting, choose a spot in full sun — their towering height makes them perfect contenders for the back of a border.
'Heleniums are happy in most fertile, well-draining soil, and planting in a position that receives plenty of sun will guarantee a good display of flowers,' adds Richard.
'To plant heleniums, dig a generously sized planting hole and add a small amount of mycorrhizal fungi before backfilling the hole. Heleniums should be watered regularly so that their soil does not dry out, and deadheading flowers can encourage the plant to produce more. Clumps can become congested after a few years, so they may need to be dug up and divided.'
One of the backbones of any British garden, hardy geraniums are resilient, long-blooming, and among the easiest garden plants to care for.
'They will flower for months and will need very little attention,' says Ross. 'They are ideal for filling gaps and softening edges. Varieties such as Rozanne, Tiny Monster, and Azure Rush are especially valued by gardeners for their long flowering period.'
'For some late-season colour and sass, rudbeckia is invaluable; it picks up just as some of the earlier perennials start to fade,' says Ross.
'Its rich yellow tones extend the season and you can pair them well with some ornamental grasses. You can also divide the clumps every few years to help them maintain their vigor, but also get some more free plants.'
Endlessly beautiful, colourful pelargoniums spill over pots and baskets during the summer months. Plant them in June for stunning displays right until early October.
'I would suggest growing perennial types of pelargoniums such as Graveolens, which has a sweet lemon smell and blush pink flowers with hits of purple,' says Ross. 'Then there is Echinatum, which has a prickly stem and bright purple flowers. It forms a short shrubby plant and loves full sun.'
And finally, salvias are a brilliant planting choice for adding height, colour and interest to your summer borders.
When it comes to the varieties, Ross suggests: 'I will always go to the Lips varieties, including Hot Lips and Cherry Lips. But for an easy variety to grow, you can not go wrong with the Nemorosa range.
'With each year you leave them in, they will double in size, plus they smell amazing.'
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