The hottest plant trends this summer

Michael looks at the best new plants from Hillier

In this week’s article, I’m looking at top performing plants for your summer garden. Many of these will be available to purchase coming into bud at this time of year, just bursting to give you a full summer of enjoyment.

There’s a few choices that you might not have considered before, such as outdoor Gerbera and patio Physocarpus. There’s a mixture of shrubs and perennials, all of which I’ve discovered are available at Hillier Garden Centres up and down the UK. Look out for their new varieties too, as they also breed their own specimens.

Cordyline ‘Torbay Dazzler’

To a beginner gardener, they often won’t believe that cordylines are hardy and able to be grown in the UK. But plants can thrive down to -5C, and can give a real exotic touch to your border or patio. ‘Torbay Dazzler’ is an award-winning selection with creamy stripes along the leaves, offering extra vibrant appeal. It’s a recent selection with a name acknowledging the UK’s ‘Cordyline country’ of Torbay and Torquay, where you’ll see many amazing mature specimens growing at their very best. Being grown at Hillier in peat-free compost sounds pretty good to me too.

Coreopsis ‘Early Sunrise’

If you’ve always loved the colour of sunflowers, then Coreopsis are awesome plants to look out for. They are unashamedly yellow and also a really easy-going hardy perennial that is relatively unfussy about soil. This particular cultivar, ‘Early Sunrise’, starts flowering early and goes right through the summer. Low growing, it’s perfect for the front of borders, or mixing into your pots with your annuals.

Gaura ‘Sparkle White’

An excellent ‘stitching plant’, by which I mean it is a plant that you can use to fill gaps in the border, this Gaura will twist and turn and stitch together your whole display with colour and class. ‘Sparkle White’ offers a lovely frothy presence, with shimmering white flowers over a long summer season. It’s a cool hot plant for Hillier right now – try Gaura as a filler for borders, pots and vases.

Gerbera garvinea ‘Orangina’

You will really get the neighbours talking when they see these Gerbera planted into your borders, since people are generally used to seeing them as cut blooms in a vase. The Garvinea Series is a breeding breakthrough from the Netherlands, and looks just as at home nudging up to your lupins and delphiniums as it does with your banana plants and Fatsia japonica. This orange variety sure packs a punch, and I love it!

Salvia ‘Hot Lips’

Perhaps one of the most recognisable plants in the UK, ‘Hot Lips’ has become very popular at Hillier thanks to its use in landscape planting in parks and gardens. That’s a really good sign, because it shows that it’ll perform on a range of different sites and conditions, and it’s bound to do just as well in your own garden. The two-tone flowers look fresh and funky in red and white, and you might even get a full red one or a full white one from time to time. Don’t forget to brush the foliage though, it smells of blackcurrant. A durable and long-lasting plant.

Physocarpus opulifolius ‘Nugget’

I love a Physocarpus, not just for their colourful foliage, but also for their use as a vase filler. I’m often going to buy a bunch of flowers at the supermarket, and then raiding my garden for sprigs of this shrub to mix in with them – and ‘Nugget’ will be ideal for this. Not only has it got gorgeous golden leaves, but it’s also a very short plant which means you can also grow it in a patio container with ease. Shrub breeding, such as they do at Hillier, has developed so much in the past few years that there are now so many lovely varieties to choose from, so why not give some a go?