All Categories - Katie's Garden Plant Centre

Plants for dry & sandy soils

6/8/2025

Don’t be a slave to the hose: if your soils are prone to drying out then make your life easier by putting in plants that can cope with the conditions.

Succulents, alpines, herbs, lavenders and many ornamental grasses have low watering needs and are able to cope with drought, as are a good number of shrubs and perennials.

Find lots of suggestions at www.katiesgarden.co.uk/advice

Keeping the show going

5/8/2025

Increasingly common Indian summers are giving us ever longer seasons for spending time outside in our gardens … so make sure there is still plenty to enjoy in yours in the months to come.

If you ‘Hampton Hacked’ your perennials in July you should now have fresh flushes of flowers and regrowth reinvigorating your beds and borders.

And there are plenty more perennials that only reach their flowering peak in later summer and autumn, helping you to ring the changes.

Having had the advantage of a long growing season many of these plants provide plenty of height, creating a cocooning effect in your garden, including many of the Verbenas, Asters (Michaelmas daisy), Helianthus (sunflower family), Rudbeckias, Japanese Anemones and statuesque Salvias such as Amistad and Phyllis Fancy.

These are generally best planted in clumps towards the backs of borders, with shorter earlier flowerers nearer the front, to allow you to achieve a succession of blooms.

Hot colours come to the fore at this time of year with the likes of Kniphofia (red hot pokers), Dahlias, Fuchsias, Heleniums, Lysimachia, Alstroemerias (Peruvian lily) and Crocosmia.

Penstemons will also provide reliable interest over a long period, as will shrubby Salvias.

Modern breeding has given us lots of new varieties that are improvements on their traditional counterparts, either by having stronger, stockier growth, longer flowering seasons, or better disease resistance, so if you didn’t have luck with a plant in the past, it might be time to try again!

Picnics for pollinators

3/8/2025

Make sure butterflies and bees still find plenty of nectar to feed on by planting up for later season colour.

Top picks for ticking both boxes include Asters, Echinaceas (coneflowers), Verbenas, Sedums, shrubby Salvias, thistles such as Eryngium and Echinops and the aromatic Agastache (giant hyssop).

Pollinator-friendly shrubs for August include Hydrangeas, Hebes, Ceanothus and Abelia.

Order Bee and Butterfly Friendly Perennial Packs at www.katiesgarden.co.uk/shop-online

Planting for nature's prettiest pollinators

2/8/2025

Think pollinators and you probably think bees, but there are many more besides that can help you in the garden, as long you help them.

Butterflies are hands-down the showiest of the pollinators, with moths taking over when the night-shift rolls around.

Most species first emerge in spring. There is a lull in June while life cycles restart before they reappear in full glory for midsummer into autumn.

Butterfly-friendly planting can be worked into a variety of themes, including cottage gardens, meadow-esque, prairie planting and dry gardens, as well as more tropical and exotic looks.

The best known butterfly-friendly plant is, with good reason, the Buddleia, aka the Butterfly Bush. These days they come in a wide choice of colours with dwarf varieties available too, all beautifully scented.

Add in other plants for the moths and butterflies and your garden can be transformed into a relaxing haven for you as well as them, especially if you like to sit out in the evenings.

Caterpillars are considered the enemy by many gardeners but with butterflies and moths in steep decline it is vital they are tolerated in their larval stage so they can be enjoyed and admired as adults, and there are various plants that help them at this stage.

Hedges can be a big help for both butterflies and caterpillars, as can grasses.

Shallow dishes of water are the finishing touch to give pollinators the chance to drink.

Visit the Butterfly Friendly Garden at Katie’s Garden Plant Centre’s Newbourne nursery

August edition of The Flourishing Garden available now!

1/8/2025

Plants for pollinators ... in July

7/7/2025

Clockwise from top left: Aster, Nepeta, Nicotiana, Verbena, Salvia

Say hello to Hydrangeas!

6/7/2025

Hydrangeas are shrubs that know how to put on a show.

They can do bright and breezy, they can do head-turning, and they can also do exquisitely elegant.

So if you are one of those people who has written them off as “not for me,” take a second look.

The paniculata types have upright habits and delightful Mr Whippy ice-cream shaped blooms, while arborescens Annabelle is a firm favourite of garden designers.

Climbing Hydrangea petiolaris has loose lacey flowers and is great for north-facing walls.

You will also find many new Hydrangeas in captivating colours and tones.

The best known Hydrangeas are the mopheads and lacecaps, named for the style of their outsized blooms.

They make spectacular cut flowers - and dried flowers too - although it is best to leave the majority on the plant until spring, so they can protect forming buds from winter frosts.

Hydrangeas can have a vexatious habit of not flowering in their second year: this is usually because they are concentrating on developing their root systems, and is nothing to worry about.

Blue-flowering varieties are best grown in ericaceous composts but others will grow in any soil as long as it is not too dry or poor.

Finally, avoid planting Hydrangeas in spots where they will get the midday sun as they have a tendency to get hot and bothered in the heat.

Find a varied choice of Hydrangeas this July at Katie’s Garden Plant Centre

Plants for butterflies

5/7/2025

From mid-July a butterfly-friendly garden will be in place at Katie’s Garden’s Newbourne nursery to coincide with the Big Butterfly Count.

Results from last year’s count led to Butterfly Conservation declaring a butterfly emergency.

You can do your bit to help these precious pollinators by adding beneficial plants to your borders.

Find lots of suggestions at www.katiesgarden.co.uk/advice

Got hot for summer!

4/7/2025

The magic of garden design isn’t simply in the plants you choose, it is the way you combine them in the borders.

Numerous plants native to South America, South Africa and other parts of the world have been happily adopted by British gardeners and are now considered classic cottage garden plants.

Among them are Fuchsias, Dahlias, Agapanthus, Alstroemerias, Salvias, Lobelias, Crocosmias and Kniphofias, all of which are superb for summer colour.

With a few tweaks you can set yourself apart from the crowd by going bright and bold and bringing a taste of the tropics to your own back garden for the summertime.

Keep pastels and whites to a minimum and embrace the varieties with stronger tones of reds, oranges, yellows, blues and magentas.

Planting will be less dense than in a cottage garden border but at the same time you want a feeling of lusciousness.

Hostas, Canna Lilies, Fatsias and ferns can all give you that big leafy effect. Add drama with sword-like upright leaves from Phormiums, Cordylines and Hemerocallis (aka day lilies).

Foliage from shrubs and perennials can provide extra impact if you use varieties with plum, gold and variegated leaves.

Choose some evergreens and you can have interest and structure all year round.

In this part of Suffolk we generally have free-draining soils - meaning roots, bulbs and tubers are less likely to rot in winter wet - as well as mild temperatures, which means most of the plants mentioned should survive our winters without any mollycoddling.

But if you really want to feel like you are on holiday at home, enhance the look with annuals that will take you through to the frosts.

Top picks include half-hardy Salvias, Rudbeckias, Lantanas, Osteospermum, Cleomes, Cupheas and Pelargoniums.

Get inspired at www.katiesgarden.co.uk/holiday-at-home

Hampton Hacking

3/7/2025

When you are still finding your green fingers it is easy to fall into despair in July, thinking all those beautiful plants you packed into your borders earlier in the year have now upped and died on you.

The good news is they very probably haven’t.

Many perennials that flower in May and June naturally run out of steam in midsummer, with first the flowers and then the leaves turning brown, giving the appearance the whole plant is dying.

However, it is very likely the root system is still going strong, and your job as the gardener is to cut away the old top growth.

It is known as the Hampton Hack as it takes place around the same time as the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show in early July.

Perennials that die back to the ground in winter, such as Nepeta (below), can be cut back hard in July. Those that keep a year-round framework, such as these woody Salvias should be cut by half

Sometimes it is done just for tidiness sake, but often it is to clear the way for new shoots, leaves and flowers that will reinvigorate your borders.

It works because flowers are all about reproduction.

Every perennial's New Year resolution is to make flowers to attract insects which will pollinate them so they can form seed, reproduce and then die down for the rest of the year.

If you cut off the old flowers before they have a chance to set seed, many plants will attempt the whole cycle again, meaning you get to enjoy a second flush of flowers - and so do the pollinators too.

Exact timing for hacking is down to personal preference, but the sooner you clear away tatty old growth the sooner you will get fresh flowers!

How to Hampton Hack

Plants that keep a woody framework, such as Perovskias (Russian sage) and many of the Salvias, should be cut back by about half.

For evergreens - those that keep their leaves all year round - you will be looking to cut out old flower spikes and any unsightly shoots. Evergreen perennials include Euphorbia, Dianthus, Bergenia, Geum and Heuchera.

But for the majority of perennials you are looking for a wholesale clearance down to just a couple of inches, mimicking what the plants do in wintertime.

Geraniums, Nepetas, Campanulas, Delphiniums, Verbascums and Lupins are some of the very many perennials that can benefit from the treatment in July.

Watch pruning tutorials at www.youtube.com/@katiesgardenplantcentre2533