Two plants I am making bold use of this summer for striking colour are Cleome ‘Señorita Rosalita’ and Browallia ‘Illumination Blue.’
I’ve used both in emphatic plantings in containers and I’ve used the purple-pink flowered cleome to again create a serpentine drift through a perennial border. It worked so well last year, I decided to just repeat it and, so far, it seems to be working well.
I’ve also used ‘Señorita Rosalita’ in containers with the silver-grey foliage of Senecio Angel Wings and as the centre piece surrounded by Sedum palmeri in two large containers.
As for the browallia, I‘ve used it in four places – one, as a mass planting in a large pot with silver-leafed hawkweed, Hieracium lanatum in the middle; in a window box with a yellow-hatted stone gnome; in a three-pot wall-planter and also in four small pots in a stand-alone basket planter.
I’ve also tucked a few others into other containers for a splash of additional colour.
The cleome can take full sun and grows to about 90 cm (3 feet) high by July/August and continues blooming non-stop until late September.
The browallia is pretty much self-cleaning meaning that the finished blooms drop away without causing a lot of mess.
It’s fun to have a few plants you don’t mind using again and again, knowing they will perform reliably without the need of exhaustive maintenance.
