Reddish and yellowish

We haven't really been satisfied with the bed alongside the garage for a while now. It's the bed marked R/Y on the plan below. The R/Y designation will come clear later.

The bed had never really been thought out and viewed from the window disappeared behind the large bamboo and camellia.

The banana was in direct line of fire of any strong winds that ripped the leaves to shreds and the bed was filled with crocosmia and heuchera that had resulted from plants being split and there being nowhere else to plant them.

We decided that late summer/early autumn colour in the garden and decided that this bed would address that failing. We also decided on a red and yellow colour scheme (R/Y)

The first task was deciding what to keep. We moved the pieris and kept a poppy, some day lilies and some crocosmia Lucifer and Solfaterre.The camellia was pruned hard and although it has pale pink flowers as it flowers early it wouldn't interfere with the red and yellow autumn theme. Everything else was moved out

We had already bought some perennials last year in readiness and these had overwintered in the greenhouse. By the time we started planting in early June some of those plants were large enough to split into two.

We didn't have enough plants to fill the bed and so gradually bought more until the bed was more or less full.

I wanted some variety of flower and leaf shape and so bought what I thought were a yellow and a red lupin. Unfortunately they turned out to be cream and pink. The cream one may have to move but the pink may just be allowed to stay.

The plants grew really quickly, some much larger than expected in their first year.

Eventually I decided to remove the poppy as once it had flowered and been cut back it left a large 'hole' in the planting. A couple more plants were bought to fill the space.

One disappointment was that I couldn't find helenium Ruby Tuesday and so bought Chelsey instead which according to the label was also red. It turned out to be a bicolour which, especially as the red astrantias didn't flower this year, is a bit overwhelmed by yellow.

The persicaria in the above photos was sent to me by Angie and has grown at an incredible rate. It is only one of the four plants that I grew from the piece that she sent me so thank you Angie.

Although the aim was for late summer/autumn colour I have also planted some miniature daffodils and some tulips to provide some early interest.

So why reddish and yellowish? It is extremely difficult to find perennials that are truly red and so some pinks and oranges have sneaked into what is now more of a warm border.

I gathered together photos of some of the flowers planted in the bed - the geums and astrantia haven't flowered this year.

I must admit that I was surprised by how many there were. Have you a favourite red or yellow perennial that I ought to try to sneak in?

The bed is still providing colour in November so even though some tweaking is needed I'd say that was a result.

Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author S Garrett