Spring into summer

BBC GARDENERS' WORLD PRESENTER RACHEL DE THAME OFFERS HER TOP PICKS ON THE BEST SPRING-TO-SUMMER PLANTS TO FILL THE COLOUR GAPS

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EARLY spring bulbs may be fading before summer plants burst into bloom, but there are plenty of colourful candidates to fill the gap between seasons.

TV gardener Rachel de Thame, a regular on BBC Gardeners' World who is also appearing at the RHS Malvern Spring Festival this weekend, says that the period between seasons doesn't have to be a desert as far as the garden is concerned.

"Although you can get a desert in terms of flowering a bit later on in mid to late summer, the merging of late spring into early summer is seamless because a lot of the things that come into flower in late spring flower for quite a long time and some cultivars flower a bit later on," says the plantswoman and author of A Flower Garden For Pollinators.

"You can bridge that gap between the daffodils and the roses. With a bit of clever planting you can make sure you have that lovely seamless colour. You've had crocuses, irises and blossom, but spring blossom can carry on into the latter part of May."

Her favourite spring-to-summer plants include:

AQUILEGIA

"I grow a lot of aquilegia. They started out as named cultivars and now they're quite promiscuous.

"They like to interbreed and have a party and you get all sorts of seedlings popping up. I like to see what comes through. If they are very ordinary I pull some of them out, but on the whole I love them. And you get some ruffly ones which almost look like a frilly Elizabethan collar.