Entrances

It does not matter what style your home is – informal or formal, casual or stately- potted plants can immediately highlight whatever ‘look’ you are trying to achieve. The rude could not be simpler. With strong, disciplined architecture you need distinctive, architectural plants. Use a pair of evergreens such as bay ( there are tow kinds, laurus nobilis or the yellow –leaved ‘Aures’) or box, either side of the door. Even better, flank the approach to the entrance with two rows of evergreens , the smallest specimen at the front near the road, the tallest by the front door, imparting a theatrical sense of importance. Standard evergreens can be bought ready – shaped, or you can easy prune your own.

Cottages and country homes need a different approach; let the plants overwhelm the architecture. You need punchy, ebullient bursts of all kinds of scents and colors. Try different arrangements using everything from exotic angel’s trumpets to lilies, from subtropical bougainvilleas to fuchsias, and from climbing, scrambling solanum to bright, brash pelargoniums and nasturtiums.

SUMMER STYLE

LEFT: this exuberant, mid-summer show is achieved with pots of white marguerite daisies, petunias, lobelia, and pink lavatera.

SPRING BULBS

OPPOSITE: steps make a fine alternative if you do not have space for spring bedding. These tulips are grown with pansies, a rhododendron, and a variegated hosta.

THE ALL-GREEN THEME

BELOW: a descending row of pots with ivy trained as a pyramid, well clipped box, and curly-leaved parsley, meets a splash of with petunias at the bottom.