How to plant a pot for colour through till June

In September, Steve, Tim and I went to Whichford Pottery on a daytrip, following an irrestible invitation from Harriet Rycroft, the (as in, the only) Whichford gardener. She manages to transform 450 pots a year. Here’s one I particularly liked.
 
Whichford is a serious artisan pottery that is keeping old skills alive and developing new ones to adapt to new clays and customer requests. If this was a restaurant it would be world famous. As it is, the Japanese value the care and effort taken with each pot and they have kept the business as robust as it is through a difficult economic climate.
Harriet showed us how to plant a pot for colour from now until June. Our pots are not..ahem.. the stuff of Chelsea Gold so I was keen to see how she could get that much value out of one planting. Sure enough, with evergreens and a tonne of bulbs she made the whole thing look elegant and easy.
 The conifer is set just below the pot edge. Harriet is planting tulip bulbs good and deep and then adding a layer of compost,some slow release fertiliser, another layer of bulbs and so on until the bedding and evergreen plants are added to sit level with the conifer. Lastly, the smallest bulbs are just pushed into the pot.
Inspired by her scheme, this is our recipe mix for Winter and Spring pots.
 
You will need:
1.Pots, compost and slow release fertiliser. If using a large pot, place it in position first as it will get heavier as you plant.
2. A selection of small evergreen shrubs and groundcover. This image shows (clockwise from top) Escallonia, Variegated golden Euonymus and Ajuga ‘Golden Beauty’ alongside the black grass Ophiopogon nigrescens.
3. Lots of bulbs for flowering from end of January to the end of May. For some pots I have gone for a strong statement of Tulipa ‘Blueberry Ripple’ and ‘Couleur Cardinale.’  As I built up the layers Fritillary meleagris, Iris Harmony, small Narcissi and Crocuses were added to the mix. Alliums can also be added for a last burst of colour.When we plant up the shrubs shown above, there will definitely be snowdrops involved.
4. Violas or Polyanthus to provide winter and spring colour. We have chosen Viola ‘Outback Fire’
 Lurking in this pot until spring, with other bulbs, is Iris bucharica which will add fullness to the planting.
Finally I put a wire mesh over the top of the most precious pots, just in case the squirrels find the bulbs.
If you want to do something similar the collections in our online shop offer a beautiful mix of named bulbs for planting into pots now. Click here for details.