Those of you who have been visiting the nursery in the last year can’t fail to have noticed some of the wonderful plant displays that have been popping up around the sales area. However, you have to be quick to see them in their full glory as they are usually shopped very quickly. The displays are put together by Sally one of our wonderful part time sales staff.

Plants in this late summer display include Achillea 'Fanal', Dahlia 'Shandy', Bistorta amplexicaulis 'Blackfield', Physosetgia virginia 'Vivid'

With a background in flower arranging and also working as an independent gardener, it quickly became apparent to us that she had a unique skill in matching plants so that their colour, texture, form and size were combined in wonderfully imaginative and creative ways.

However, getting her to stay still long enough for an interview was close to impossible. So, Claire Mitchell spent a day with her filming and asking questions while Sally put together a whole new raft of beautiful displays. It should be added that it was horribly cold and damp so maintaining her enthusiasm for the task must have taken a herculean effort.

Plants in this July display include Eryngium zabelli 'Big Blue'. Echinacea 'Parrot', Trollius 'Dancing Queen', Echinacea purpurea 'Fatal Attraction'

Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora 'Star of the East'

Sally explained that she looks for four different types of plant to work to create a balanced, informal but meticulously detailed display. Focal points, structural plants, accent plants and fillers.

Hats off to Sally and Claire who worked through one of the coldest spring days to build one of the fastest selling displays yet.

Often starting with a plant that is flowering beautifully but which may not be the easiest to place, she chooses these plants as her focal points and arranges them in a smooth sweeping arc or s-bend on the display area. There may be more than one type of plant used as focal points but they all have a relationship to each other. For instance, Iris 'Rajah' with its intense yellow petals with deep burgundy, almost brown falls, was not proving to be the easiest plant for customers to imagine in their gardens. Sally paired it with Iris 'Kent Pride' and Iris 'Carnaby'. These all have a link in their colours but on their own can be quite hard looking.

So, on this occasion, for framework and height she added tall Leucanthemum x superbum ‘Wirral Supreme’ whose white daisies with yellow centres, on erect waving stems, picked up on the white and yellow of the Irises, but instantly softened the look of the display. Sally explained that the brain can pick up on subtle connections almost subconsciously and will register the effect as pleasing to the eye. She also added Heuchera cylindrica ‘Greenfinch’ with its tall upright stems and yellowy green flowers. A purple accent was added to pick up on the flashes of purple visible in the falls of some of the Iris and this was picked out using Campanula glomerata var. dahurica and also with the diminutive Viola ‘Avril Lawson’. A filler of Baptisia ‘Chocolate Chip’ was added to the mid-levels and finally the beautiful red stemmed and white flowered Gilenia trifoliata completed the display.

I should add that despite the uncomfortable changeable weather and sometimes very strong wind, the display sold out within a couple of days as people picked up on the wonderful combinations. Sally has to redesign her displays every week, sometimes twice and the rest of us re-stock them as fast as we can. All the displays are there to inspire and to be shopped.

Plants in this summer display include Sidalcea 'Elsie Heugh', Salvia nemorosa 'Caradonna', Erigeron 'Quakeress', Echinacea purpurea 'Magnus'

Dahlia 'Bishop of Leicester'

If you would like to know more about placing plants together both in the garden and for cut displays, Sally recommends the book ‘The Cut Flower Source Book’ by Rachel Siegfried