Calendula 'Art Shades', otherwise known as English or pot marigold, is an enduring cottage garden favourite that looks equally at home in traditional or contemporary planting schemes, where the richly coloured flowers will add cheerful character to your beds, borders or pots. They make a great cut flower for your vase, too, and the dried flowers are also excellent added to pot pourri. This easy-to-grow hardy annual produces masses of frilly petalled, fully double blooms in shades of creamy peach, orange, gold and yellow. They are hugely attractive to many beneficial insects, so make a great companion plant for your kitchen garden. In fact, the petals are edible, with a slightly peppery taste, and make a colourful garnish or addition to salads. They can also be used instead of saffron for colouring rice dishes, or in soups, stews or curries - or even as a substitute for nutmeg, sprinkled over rice pudding. The ancient Egyptians used calendula as a rejuvenating herb and the flowers have been used for centuries in cosmetics and creams for their therapeutic properties. The seeds can be sown directly into their flowering position or started off in seed trays indoors. Either way, they will flower in the same year as sowing. Calendulas thrive in a sunny spot in well-prepared, fertile soil or compost. Once established, these robust little beauties will do equally well through a wet or dry season, and with regular watering and dead-heading will flower all summer long, well into the first frosts of autumn. Supplied as a packet of 200 (approx.) seeds ready to sow outdoors in their flowering position or indoors into trays of compost. Growing to a height of 60cm (24in) and spread of 30cm (12in), sow or transplant outdoors from March to June and again from August to October, directly where they are to flower. Late summer and autumn sowings will flower the following year. Spring sowings will take 10-12 weeks to flower.
An easy-to-grow annual for bedding and borders. Large frilly blooms in a mix of colours, from deep orange to cream, are long flowering and great for cutting. Height: 60cm (24). Spread: 45cm (18). Culinary information: Some parts of these flowers are edible. Click here for more details about edible flowers.
If you fancy a change from Petunias in your patio pots and baskets, then Calibrachoa Calita® 'Apricot Shades' makes a great alternative. This versatile annual boasts tumbling stems that spill elegantly over the edges of containers.
Bright fiery orange and yellow blooms unfurl above a sea of ferny blue-green foliage for a bold summer display. These dainty hardy annuals are tougher than they appear and positively thrive on poor, dry soils. The papery flowers attract bees and hoverflies, and make excellent, if short-lived, cut flowers. California poppies are easy to grow in beds and borders, or let them self seed throughout gravel gardens to form natural drifts. Height: 30cm (12). Spread: 30cm (12)
Eschscholzia are best known by their common name of Californian Poppy, alluding to their bright blooms and delicate, papery petals. Californian Poppy 'Sun Shades' is a dazzler! Its bright orange blooms appear above feathery, blue-green foliage, attracting pollinating insects to their summer nectar.
Californian Poppy 'Monarch Art Shades' is a compact and wonderfully colourful addition to the summer garden. The plants produces double or semi-double flowers in powerful shades of orange. Perfect in pots and at the front of borders, or scattered amongst your planting to give intense highlights. They thrive in poor, dry soil and will self seed freely in borders, gravel and any cracks in the pavement. These hardy annuals will grow to H30cm (1ft) x W15cm (6in). Flowers from June to August. Dead-head for longer flowering, or if you want to prevent self seeding.
First F1 Bred Variety on the Market A true eye-catcher with radiant flowers in vibrant shades of orange;contrasting spectacularly against the glossy green foliage. Offering an impressive blooming time from May to October;these impressive plants are perfect for accenting your borders or as feature plants in containers on the patio or decking areas. An easy-to-grow variety;perfect for sunny and dry areas.
First F1 Bred Variety on the Market A true eye-catcher with radiant flowers in vibrant shades of orange;contrasting spectacularly against the glossy green foliage. Offering an impressive blooming time from May to October;these impressive plants are perfect for accenting your borders or as feature plants in containers on the patio or decking areas. An easy-to-grow variety;perfect for sunny and dry areas.
You'll never be short of cut flowers if you plant a bed of Dahlia 'Sunset Shades'! This spectacular colour mix of red, orange-pink and salmon will provide you with of material for summer bouquets.
Providing the same spectacular garden performance as customer favourite 'Arizona Sun', we are pleased to offer a spectacular new dwarf gaillardia from seed - 'Arizona Red Shades'. They are long-flowering and low-maintenance, perfect for containers and for filling gaps at the front of a border. Flowering in their first year, colourful blooms sit neatly above uniform, wellbranched plants well into autumn. Providing fabulous colour whatever the weather, these new gaillardia are great value hardy perennials
Also known as Blanket Flowers, Gaillardia are an instantly recognisable cottage garden favourite. These 'Jam Tart Flowers' are invaluable in the summer border due to their long flowering season and their ability to provide a bright and colourful display whatever the British weather throws at them. The plants form a low mound of green, furry leaves, bearing upright stems of large daisy-like flowers on long stems which are perfect for cutting and very attractive to butterflies. Perfect in pots, they will also make fantastic gap fillers in your containers, beds, and mixed borders. 'Arizona Red Shades' produces gorgeous blooms in the most spectacular shades of red, with bright crimson petals that look like the tips have been dipped in yellow paint for a perfect contrast. These daisy-like blooms come into flower during early summer and will last right the way through to autumn. They also make fantastic cut flowers, so you can enjoy them inside the home as well as in your garden. Easy to grow and requiring very little maintenance, just deadhead the faded blooms to prolong the flowering season. Supplied as 3 x established plants in 9cm pots ready to pot on or plant out.
This half-hardy annual Treasure Flower, Gazania 'Red Shades' is certainly no shrinking violet. It has large, exotic daisy style flowers, that have deep ruby red petals, and orange centres.