How to Design an Elegant Pink Garden
Pink is a versatile colour to play with if you’re limiting your planting palette, as these inspiring ideas illustrate
Claudia De Yong
21 June 2020
Houzz UK contributor and award-winning landscape and garden designer. Claudia de Yong Designs offers a consultancy and design service for the private and corporate client. We are also able to source anything for the garden from plants to pots, paving and architectural features . Please visit my new online shop for garden products.
Houzz UK contributor and award-winning landscape and garden designer. Claudia de... More
There are countless trees, shrubs and plants that provide an extensive range of pink blooms for the garden. Here’s a small but beautiful selection to kick-start your planting plan.
Also in this series: How to Design a Stunning Blue and Purple Garden l How to Design a Beautiful All-white Garden
Also in this series: How to Design a Stunning Blue and Purple Garden l How to Design a Beautiful All-white Garden
Fill a sunny patch
The following plants are all sun-lovers.
The following plants are all sun-lovers.
- Pinks (Dianthus) have many uses – from edging the path in a cottage garden to growing in a greenhouse or filling nooks in a rock garden. Just make sure they are positioned in full sunlight. A good low-growing variety to try is ‘Little Jock’, which bears scented, double, pale pink flowers with a maroon eye and fringed petals.
- African daisies, or Osteospermum, are a vigorous, clump-forming perennial that thrive in the summer sun. Look for the aptly named ‘In the Pink’.
- For a tall, late-flowering perennial, choose the deep pink coneflower, Echinacea purpurea, which blooms from July to September, attracting bees and butterflies. Sedum spectabile ‘Brilliant’, which bears large, flat heads with lots of tiny, star-shaped, bright pink flowers, is also a bee favourite.
- Heather is a useful sun-loving evergreen perennial. Erica x darleyensis ‘Arthur Johnson’ flowers in midwinter until spring, with dense spikes of pink flowers.
Introduce ground cover
- Hardy cyclamen is a low-growing, spreading perennial that grows from underground tubers. Several of the species flower throughout late summer, autumn and the winter months. Some flowers appear before the leaves and some after, and they will happily self-seed, forming extensive colonies over time.
- Arabis ‘Little Treasure Deep Rose’ will flourish where other plants may struggle, producing masses of rose-pink flowers, which act as a magnet for bees, butterflies and other insects.
- Geranium is an invaluable and hardy plant for any garden. There are so many to choose from, including low-growing varieties that will fill the gaps along the edges of borders and paths. Try the bright pink, clump-forming Geranium sanguineum ‘Max Frei’, or its taller cousin, Geranium ‘Wargrave Pink’, which forms drifts, weaving in-between shrubs.
Cultivate a climber
- Clematis cirrhosa ‘Freckles’ is a winter-flowering evergreen that bears creamy white flowers with pink speckles. Another one to try is Clematis Montana ‘Marjorie’, a favourite of mine. It flowers from May to June and has cream, semi-double flowers that are overlaid with a salmon-pink that deepens with age. For late summer, try Clematis ‘Comtesse de Bouchaud’, which produces an abundance of mauve-pink flowers, or for flowers in early summer and again in late summer/early autumn, try Clematis ‘Doctor Ruppel’.
- Jasminum x stephanense is a lovely, delicate but vigorous, twining, deciduous climber. It has dainty clusters of fragrant pale pink flowers in June and July. To fully enjoy the fragrance, plant it near the house or on an arch above a frequently used path.
- The flowering quince Chaenomeles is classified as a shrub, but is used as a climber for walls, introducing wonderful colour from March to May. The delicate flowers range in colour from the softest apricot-pink – in Chaenomeles speciosa ‘Moerloosei’ – to deeper pinky-red varieties. Browse what’s available and pick the perfect shade for your space.
Showcase annuals
There are many flowering annuals you can sow from seed or plant in pots that will provide you with various shades of pink to carry you through the seasons.
There are many flowering annuals you can sow from seed or plant in pots that will provide you with various shades of pink to carry you through the seasons.
- Cosmos bipinnatus Sensation Series is a vigorous, erect and half-hardy annual with large flowers produced through summer and autumn. (Half-hardy plants require warmth to develop, which means the seeds are normally sown indoors.)
- Sweet william (Dianthus barbatus) has multiple small blooms. Some of the varieties – such as ‘Sweet Pink Magic’ F1 – have three or more colours on one plant.
- There’s an abundance of pink-flowering sweet peas to choose from. Lathyrus odoratus ‘Pink Cupid’ is a compact variety ideal for growing in pots. For a delicate pale pink and a lovely scent, choose ‘Anniversary’.
- Other pink annual plants include stocks and snapdragons (Antirrhinum), both often grown to be used as cut flowers.
- For hanging baskets, pots and window boxes, there are countless varieties of pink flowering petunias to choose from. Petunia ‘Cherry Ripple’ is more unusual and has large, double, vanilla and berry blooms that are scented.
Pick a pink-flowering tree
There are many tree varieties that produce a wonderful canopy of pink blossom anywhere between early spring and winter.
- Prunus Pendula ‘Pendula Rosea’ has lovely weeping habit, and is also winter-flowering.
- For spring, try the semi-double pink flowers of Prunus ‘Kanzan’. For a weeping variety, try Prunus ‘Kiku-shidare-zakura’, which has double, bright pink flowers.
There are many tree varieties that produce a wonderful canopy of pink blossom anywhere between early spring and winter.
- Prunus, or Japanese cherry, is an ornamental flowering tree and many varieties have pink blooms.
- Prunus Pendula ‘Pendula Rosea’ has lovely weeping habit, and is also winter-flowering.
- For spring, try the semi-double pink flowers of Prunus ‘Kanzan’. For a weeping variety, try Prunus ‘Kiku-shidare-zakura’, which has double, bright pink flowers.
- Some fruiting trees, especially varieties of apple (Malus), have lovely pink blossom, so look out for the various selections.
- You can’t get a more magnificent pink bloom than that of the magnolia, which produces its flowers before the leaves. Grown as a tree, magnolia is classified as a shrub and is single- or multi-stem. For a pale pink variety flowering in April-May, try Magnolia x soulangeana. Magnolia liliiflora ‘Nigra’ has a compact habit and bears dark pink/purple flowers from June to September.
Grow a rose
Pink is the colour we most associate with roses, and shades range from the palest soft blush right through to bright magenta. Some roses are tinged with other colours, such as lilac and peach.
Pink is the colour we most associate with roses, and shades range from the palest soft blush right through to bright magenta. Some roses are tinged with other colours, such as lilac and peach.
- For a lovely climber, you can’t go wrong with the repeat-flowering Rosa ‘Mortimer Sackler’ or ‘The Generous Gardener’.
- For a shrub rose, look out for Rosa ‘The Ancient Mariner’ or ‘Gentle Hermione’.
- For ramblers, try Rosa ‘Kew Rambler’ or – my favourites – ‘Albertine’ or ‘Paul’s Himalayan Musk’.
- There are also some lovely pink varieties you can buy that are trained as a standard tree rose, such as Rosa ‘Anne Boleyn’.
Celebrate cottage garden favourites
- There’s an abundance of cottage-style pink flowering plants for the garden. Among many others is the foxglove (Digitalis purpurea). Digitalis x mertonensis is a wonderful herbaceous perennial variety with tall spires of blush-coloured tubular flowers.
- Mullein (Verbascum) is a biennial or perennial. Verbascum ‘Pink Petticoats’ is a lovely variety with apricot/pink to salmon ruffled flowers.
- Peonies are long-lived herbaceous perennials with flowers that bloom from early to mid-summer. Paeonia lactiflora ‘Kelway’s Supreme’ and ‘Ballerina’ both have large, double pink flowers, which may need supporting as they grow, but which will add a big splash of pink to any border.
- Penstemon are perfect small, upright perennials for the cottage garden. A favourite of mine is Penstemon ‘Apple Blossom’, which has white-throated pink flowers.
Select pinks for semi-shade
- Bleeding heart (Dicentra spectabilis) is a vigorous, clump-forming herbaceous perennial that flowers in late spring and early summer. It has dangling, heart-shaped flowers with rose-pink outer petals and white inner ones, perfect for semi-shade.
- The range of colours of the Lenten rose (Helleborus orientalis) is extensive, from the palest of pinks to the deepest burgundy. Hellebores are ideal in semi-shade or woodland gardens and you’ll achieve the best effect if you plant them at eye level.
- Elephant’s ears (Bergenia), is a clump-forming evergreen perennial that works well in semi-shade. The variety Bergenia ‘Spring Fling’ produces a mass of pink flowers from March to April.
- Japanese anemone ‘Splendens’ (Anemone hupehensis var. japonica ‘Splendens’) is a vigorous, spreading herbaceous perennial that produces masses of cup flowers on tall, floaty stems. A lovely variety is Anemone x hybrida ‘Max Vogel’, which has single flowers with light pink blooms that become paler over time, from late summer to late autumn.
Go big on bulbs
- Tulips are one of the must-have plants for the spring garden, as well as one of the most popular bulbs. There are numerous pink varieties to choose from, ranging from the palest of pinks right through to the deepest magenta.
- Fritillaria meleagris is an upright bulbous perennial with dainty bell-shaped flowers in chequered shades of pink. It looks best planted where it can naturalise in grass.
- There are so many different types of dahlia. Choose from a single flower variety; a Cactus dahlia, which has double blooms with narrow petals that curve outwards; a Pompom or the slightly bigger Ball varieties that form perfect spheres, or the Waterlily, Anemone, Decorative and Collarette dahlias. All these have pink blooms to choose from.
Stick in a shrub
Do you have a favourite pink flower? Let us know in the Comments.
- There are numerous shrubs that produce a variety of pink flowers, including hydrangeas, fuchsias, hebes, camellias and the wonderfully scented daphnes, which are lovely when planted next to a seat or doorway, so you can benefit from their wonderful fragrance.
- You’ll be hard-pressed not to find a rhododendron or azalea – a sub-section of the genus Rhododendron – that has pink flowers. For a compact variety, try Rhododendron ‘Strawberry ice’, which has soft pink flowers in late spring.
For a woodland garden, opt for the vigorous and hardy Rhododendron x yakushimanum, which has deep pink, funnel-shaped flowers that fade gradually to white. - A plant that seldom appears in gardens today, due to its rather leggy nature, is mallow (Lavatera), yet it produces gorgeous pink blooms. A lovely variety is Lavatera ‘Barnsley’, which produces open, funnel-shaped, flush pink flowers.
Do you have a favourite pink flower? Let us know in the Comments.
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Lovely ideas to add to my tiny plot. Thanks. I already have Rosa 'New Dawn' a strong determined climber despite her delicate pale pink flowers. I also grow Rosa 'Gertrude Jekyll' as a climber and her pink is much more vibrant than New Dawn and gorgeous against my black trellis.
I started with the idea of only pink, but keep being seduced by different colours - I am not disciplined enough, but already have a number of your suggestions in my minute space!
@ dundrum 16, you might want to look at other gardens to see what grows well as not everything withstands salty breeze. Where my mother lived on the coast in mid-Wales, acid-loving plants did wonderfully, but not where my grandparents lived on the Kent coast. Tamarix is usually OK and is pretty pink (don't recommend the dirty pink variety!) and feathery leaves in the summer, but not dense. Perhaps a viburnum tinus, which will give you pinky-white flowers to cut in the winter and will tolerate hard pruning. A ceanothus might work, and is a glorious blue. Or a choisya (white flowers). Or a small pine, maybe. Regarding your neighbour, I would check with the town hall on local regulations regarding the height versus distance of any permanent planting between the two plots. Good luck!
Great article!!!