Peter Dowdall: Geums attract bees and add colour to your garden

Loved by bees and other pollinating insects, geums will not only bring colour and beauty to the garden, they will also help to sustain wildlife and enhance biodiversity

Sun, 05 Jun, 2022 - 07:09

Peter Dowdall

It's funny how plants come and go on my radar. What I was intent on sourcing a few years back is now hardly looked at. I remember, once upon a time, I needed, not just wanted but needed, to find every single campanula that I could and, now, I could take or leave them.

I do still love them in the garden but am not driven to have the ultimate collection of campanula.

Heaucheras are still somewhat of an obsession alright, I do still get a bit weak at the knees when I spot a new cultivar. Perhaps the fun is in the chase and at this stage in my life, it’s only plants I’m chasing!

This year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show gave me a new one to add to my list. Shortlisted for Plant of The Year 2022, Heuchera Alfie has rich chocolate-coloured foliage which is slightly ruffled, with strong upright dark stems bearing white flowers tinged with pink. It’s easy to grow and loved by bees.

I know other gardeners are the same. I was speaking with the cacti and succulent specialist Michael Harrington at Mallow Home & Garden Festival recently and he too was telling me that his spiky obsession used to be one genus and now it’s altogether different.

For me right now, I’m discovering geums. That’s not to say that I haven’t always been aware of them but over the last few years, I’m noticing them more and more.

In particular the varieties Geum Mai Tai and Geum Wet Kiss.

Great names and even better plants. Beautiful, ruffled flowers, the colour of which, for me, are difficult to describe but I’ll give it a shot. Masses of coral pink, yellow, and orange blooms are produced from early spring through to late autumn.

The flower stems reach a height of about 50cm and they nearly demand to be planted with something else, so well do they combine with other perennials, ornamental grasses and ferns.

I spotted a few of these at the Kilmurry Nurseries display at Mallow and just had to bring a few home with me.

I’m planting them with the simple and beautifully elegant Stipa tenuissima, one of my favourite grasses. Its texture and movement in even the slightest of breezes are what I love about it and next to that is going some Ammi Green Mist or more commonly referred to as Queen Anne’s Lace.

This is a green form of ammi and I am hoping that the feathery foliage will provide a nice, soft accompaniment to the geums.

They will grow in nearly any garden provided they get to see some sunshine, ideally full sun and they do prefer a moist soil, ideal for planting near streams or ponds.

The geums tie in with the naturalistic planting trend which is very much in style at the moment and I, for one, hope it continues to be fashionable for a long time to come.

This trend sees the planting of natural-looking, cottage garden type perennials in drifts to create that nonchalant “it just happened” look.

To create this you need to use, firstly, the correct plants for sure, but also some artistry. For it can very easily turn out to be less nonchalant and more chaotic.

Avoid this by repeating some plants and combinations. You don’t want the planting to look structured and planned to the “nth” degree but without any thought or planning it will turn out to be just a collection of plants with no rhyme nor reason.

Loved by bees and other pollinating insects, geums will not only bring colour and beauty to the garden, they will also help to sustain wildlife and enhance biodiversity.

In terms of colour, I’m torn as to what to plant next to my geums. The stipa and ammi will bring lovely, light, airy texture but in terms of colour combinations I could go one of two ways. Using complementary or contrasting colours.

'The problem when I go to plant shows is that I come home with a car boot full of plants.'

Verbascum Dark Eyes is a truly beautiful form with yellow flowers and a dark, nearly black centre, the combination of both will be complementary and calming. Then again, I could plant them with a beautiful blue salvia or the magnificent Lupin Persian Slipper.

The result will be less calming and more jaw-dropping, and the contrast will be quite striking.

The problem when I go to plant shows is that I come home with a car boot full of plants and then, faced with the problem of where to put them and that’s what has happened once more after the Mallow festival.

Will I go for the complementary tones of the verbascum and geum or will I go with the dramatic contrast that the salvia or lupin will create? I guess it will depend on my mood on the day that I plant and that is the beauty of the garden, it changes with our own taste and whims.