Q How can I bring lasting colour to a sunny front garden on London clay?
Sam Brown, London
A MATT B SAYS First, improve your clay soil by forking in plenty of homemade compost, so you can grow a wider range of plants. Suitable options include cheerful, ever-reliable geums, such as vivid orange ‘Totally Tangerine’, bright red ‘Mrs J. Bradshaw’ and deep yellow ‘Lady Stratheden’. Deadhead them to extend their flowering season.
Roses also like clay. Try the shrub rose Bring Me Sunshine, whose apricot blooms get paler with age. Interplant with alliums, such as ‘Purple Sensation’, putting gravel in the planting hole to improve drainage. Hardy geraniums would thrive here too, including long-flowering violet-blue Rozanne, and heucheras are an ideal edging – try ‘Green Spice’, whose silvery-green leaves have bold…
