Twenty-plus years of the Bold and Brilliant Garden

In London the May Gap comes early. For gardeners the May Gap is the quiet time when the garden becomes less colourful. The spring bulbs and other spring flowers go over, but the summer-flowering perennials have not got into their stride.   For me, having some flowers at this time of year was never a problem. The difficulty was rather the colour of those flowers. I bought a superb allium (ornamental onion) from Cotswold Garden Flowers called Allium 'Globemaster'. From that single plant I now have sixty or more. The flower heads are a pleasant purple. From the same source I also purchased Gladiolus Byzantinus which is magenta. This is another wonderful plant which proved prolific. These two came to dominate the "May Gap". But the unrelieved combination of mauve-purple and magenta wasn't giving me the "hot colours" I craved. Quite the reverse; the display looked cold! So I needed to add some plants which would warm up the scene and give me boldness an...