Sucessional Planting

I stumbled accross this by chance about 15 years ago when a doronicum and Pink phlox self seeded together. It was fantastic, early in the season I got lovely yellow flowers, then the doronicum died completely back and up came the phlox.

when I saw Christopher Lloyds book "Sucessional planting" I just had to buy it and he really works on this idea.

So what other workable sucessional planting has anyone else done or tried - that has worked?

 

I am still working on this Waco. But one aspect did strike me. He (C.L.) says spring bulbs are a major contributor to the shift system as they flower early before many shrubs and perennials. But he said DO NOT use broad leaved daffodils. They are far too aggressive and look a mess for ages. Instead he recommends narrow leaved species Tulip Linifolia, which can be left in the ground from year to year and will not interfere with later plants.

My own experiance with purchased Bluebells (Spanish I presume - not native), is that they did look nice when they flowered, but there was so much foliage and it took so long to die down that it was difficult to grow anything else at all.

Sorry Waco - just re-read your last post under forget-me-nots saying you used early bulbs - me-forget :D

 

Just to prove the point you (CL)are making re bulbs, here is an example of how not to do it - broad leaves.

I planted my erythroniums to come up through hebe and oh the poor poor hebe! You can also see parsley (self seeded) and just about the podophyllium which also take over the spot when the erythronium dies down. I know I need to sort this, but can't bear to move the Erythronumns, so soppose the hebe (which is not particularly interesting) will have to move on!

 

The secret of successional planting must be to find plants that flower early, then die away completely and allow a later flowering plant to take over. There are loads of later flowering plants - but its finding the earlies that is the problem.

Tonight, on Gardener's World, they mentioned Ranunculus aconitifolius 'Flora Pleno' which flowers early with white blooms and then dies away by summer. Is this a contender?