Great Flowers for Adding Height to Your Garden

Tall, flowering plants are an essential element in various styles of gardening. To create a flower border based on a traditional English cottage garden theme, for example, you will need to use a range of flowering plants that capture the ‘atmosphere’ that you trying to create.

When you are attempting to add height to the garden, do not overlook the importance of structural elements that give some plants the support they need to achieve their full height potential. This will also help to achieve the overall appearance that you are striving for. Select your varieties with care and consideration though, as some will need more attention when it comes to the amount of time needed to prune and train them.

Verbena bonariensis is an attractive, flowering perennial. This plant will provide both height and colour to the flower border in the summer months. The vibrant flowers are lovely shades of lilac and blue and not wishy-washy in tone. Also, the leaves of the plant sit at the base, and do not sprout up and compete with the surrounding plants.

One of verbena's best qualities is its sturdy stems that support the attractive flowers perfectly. It does not have a floppy style of growth, so there should be no need to support it (unless of course you have really windy and difficult weather conditions).

Verbena is said to be a short-lived perennial, but it does have the ability to self-seed. So you should have replacement plants in the future. The flowering time is in summer and autumn. It loves full sun and moist, but well-drained soil.

Sunflowers are an easy and fast-growing plant that children will enjoy caring for. Creative learning opportunities include: making a collage picture of the flower from coloured tissue paper or the coloured pages of a magazine, making a graph or chart to plot the plant's growth and using the seeds for arts and crafts projects. The seeds of sunflowers can also be used to feed the birds in wintertime.

If you are growing sunflowers for height, make sure you buy the giant ones, as some varieties are smaller and more compact.

Foxgloves are plants with wondrously coloured flowers that come in a variety of heights. Do not plant foxgloves in locations that will be used by pets and children, however, as all parts of the flower are toxic.

Note: Always check the safety of plants before using them in gardens that children and pets visit.

Hollyhocks are a lovely plant for creating a cottage-style garden look. However, this plant does occasionally suffer from rust, a disease which affects the look of the leaves.

Wisteria is a tall plant that's beautiful to look at but needs care and attention to keep it neat and tidy. Over the years, it can grow large enough to cover the wall of a house. Though wisteria is delicate looking, you need to establish its boundaries by keeping it in check.

Fuchsias form a bush-type plant that flower profusely in the summer months. They should survive all but the harshest winters. Even if they appear to have died off in a cold spell, they will often grow back from the base in the spring.

Ornamental alliums come in different shapes and heights. The allium in photo below is good for adding height and interest to the flower garden. In England, they flower in the summer months of June to July.

When this allium is in full bloom, it is a globe shape. But when it first opens, it will be the little, star-shaped blossoms that will capture your attention. The globe-shaped flower is a pretty shade of lilac, which goes well with other types of flowers and the green of foliage too.

Here are two more excellent selections for adding height to your garden:

Delphiniums

Delphiniums are a beautiful, delicate-looking flower that comes in a range of pretty shades. Though not the tallest of flowers, it is still useful for planting in drifts to add the feeling of height and to lead the eye upwards to notice the taller flowers around it. The downside of growing this is that it features high on the "tasty treats list" for slugs and snails.

Climbing Roses

Climbing roses, or rambling roses, will add height to your garden design. When choosing which roses to plant, it's important to take into consideration how tall and wide it is likely to grow, how many times a year it will flower (some only flower once) and how much time you will need to spend pruning and cutting it back and training it. For instance, Albertina produces a mass of beautiful peach- and pink-coloured flowers, but it only does so once each year and requires a good amount of time to prune and train it.

If you want to replace a rose with a new one, however, it's best not to plant the new roses in the same location where the old ones you have removed were, because the chances are that the new ones will not thrive.

Note: An arbour or pergola can provide the perfect support for your roses to grow over and can also serve as a pleasurable spot to view the beautiful results of the hours you have spent working in the garden.

All of the flower photos on this page were taken in my garden. The hollyhocks, foxgloves and sunflowers were grown from seed. The wisteria is almost 10 years old and flowers twice in the summer months, with the second flowering being less prolific than the first, which is always a joy to see.