Easy planting ideas

Another 5 plant recipe for your borders as we head towards proper Spring

While we’re still savouring the yellows of early Spring, let’s have a quick chat about flowering shrubs.

OK, so shrubs might not be the most glamorous of garden entities, but please do just look at what these three can do for you, right now at the end of March while the leaves on hedges and trees are still thinking about coming out, and then tell me you still don’t like them.

Plant this collection where you can see them from inside the house, or along a path you use every day, and they will brighten up the day immediately. I promise.

I’ve put these three beautiful flowering shrubs together here for you along with a couple of perfect planting partners. They’ll generally flower at roughly the same time, so in a small garden you’d want just one of each.

Then add a scattering of the pollinator-pleasing perennials at their feet, and a few carefully-chosen bulbs whose shades are as subtle and pretty as those of the shrubs themselves. I’ve added rough numbers and ideas of how to place them.

And here you have it. Five fabulous plants, which, when put together, say Spring is well and truly here: