Award-winning designer Jo Thompson’s container-planting series continues with this early spring flower combination using Narcissus and Scilla. Words Jo Thompson, photographs Jason Ingram
The breathtaking beauty in the tiniest of spring bulbs never fails to enchant. Here, Narcissus ‘Minnow’ and Narcissus ‘Elka’ sprinkle palest yellow cheer across a shallow bronze bowl, creating the perfect, classic, spring colour combination with the blues of Scilla luciliae and Scilla siberica. This planting is designed to be placed on a table or raised wall so that these small spring jewels can be admired in all their beauty in this little mini-meadow.
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How to achieve the look
Container and composition
Small spring bulbs are so beautiful, but their diminutive size means they can be easily overlooked in the garden, so it’s a really good idea to place them in containers, which can be positioned at a higher level. This bronze ’charger’ is a wide, shallow dish that looks smart placed anywhere that’s raised, for example in the middle of a garden table, and its simple lines allow these miniature bulb beauties to take centre stage.
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I set out to create the feeling of a tiny spring meadow full of these softly coloured gems of flowers: the clear and bright blues of the different scillas really are excellent partners, harmonising with the gentlest of lemony-creamy yellows and challenging anyone who says they don’t like yellow to think again. The dwarf narcissi bulbs are mixed up together and placed around 2cm apart. With simplicity very much in mind, the scillas are then planted at larger intervals at the edges of the dish. I planted these bulbs in autumn, in compost produced on site at Water Lane Walled Garden, the wonderful new garden I am helping to design in Kent. I topped it off with a layer of horticultural grit.
Cultivation and care
Water the container freely as the leaves emerge, and later on deadhead the flowers as they go over in order to ensure next year’s display. This is a container that looks as good empty as it does planted,
so you can leave it for the rest of the year as a feature in itself.
Plants
Narcissus ‘Elka’
A dwarf daffodil with creamy-white petals and the palest of lemon trumpets, which fade to cream. March – April. Height and spread: 15-20cm x 10cm. AGM. RHS H6.
Scilla luciliae
A bulbous perennial with starry, white-centred, bright-blue flowers. February – April. 15cm x 15cm. AGM. RHS H6. USDA 3a-8b.
Scilla siberica
A bulbous perennial with purple stems and bright-blue, bowl-shaped flowers. March – April. 10cm x 5cm. AGM. RHS H6. USDA 2a-8b.
Narcissus ‘Minnow’
A dwarf daffodil with dainty cream and yellow flowers. March – April. 15cm x 20cm. AGM. RHS H6.