Planting Scheme With Tropaeolum Pollyphyllum

Tropaeolum polyphyllum and Scilla peruviana

Tropaeolum polyphyllum snaking through Scilla peruviana

Pink California Poppy

Larger view of bed by lioness sculpture

     Today's post is somewhat a continuation of yesterday. I am going to explain the planting scheme I have going in the bed where my main planting of Tropaeolum polyphyllum lives.  This is a relatively small (for my garden, that is) bed by the lioness sculpture in the garden. This is a bronze sculpture by Georgia Gerber, an artist who lives on Whidbey Island, another island in Puget Sound near us. I will have a post in the future to talk more about this sculpture.
     As I explained in my previous post on Scilla peruviana, I had to move all my bulbs which had been in my front border into the fenced in part of the garden to protect them from the deer.  One place I put some of them was in this border by the sculpture. I made this move earlier this year, so these bulbs are not yet fully established in this bed.  However, there is enough bloom going on that you can get the picture as illustrated in the first and second pictures above. As I anticipated, the scilla blooms at the same time as the tropaeolum and the colors of the two make a nice contrast. This is also a good combo because the foliage of the tropaeolum is bluish and fine, while the foliage of the scilla is broad and green. Furthermore, the habit of the tropaeolum is to come up all over the place and snake around,  so hopefully it will do this around all the scillas in that bed.
     When I moved the scillas from their prior location, there were some pink California poppies that came with them from that location.  This was purely by accident, but it was a fortuitous accident, because it gave me the idea that these would also look good in this bed. So I planted some additional poppies in the bed--just enough to get them started because they will self sow in this location and I will probably have to weed most of them out, leaving a few strategically placed.
     So, although this bed has not yet completely filled in you can get the idea--hopefully next year this should be a riot of color--the blue of the scilla, the yellow of the tropaeolum and the pink of the poppies. This makes a good combination because all these plants like the same conditions, all of them are about the same height, they bloom at the same time,  and the colors are all clear jewel tones.