Bloom-Scrolling: Our Top Floral Picks for an Instagram-Worthy Garden

Gardens and gardening have been a thread running through the…

Got the January blues? Feeling the chill of winter? Let’s shake off low spirits and indulge in some blooming inspiration for your garden!

We’ve rounded-up some of our team’s all-time favourite floral fancies, chosen for their fabulous colour, glorious scent, long-lasting flowering season or simple charms to help bring some sparkle to your garden over years to come. Here’s just a selection of our top picks that will be every bit camera-ready to liven up your social media feeds:

Peony 'Coral Charm' one our our top picks of flowers

1. Paeonia ‘Coral Charm’

Planted as a specimen, singularly with space around, through a long border to add a touch of vintage-inspired glamour. Gaze into its exquisite open-cupped centre, enveloped by silken semi-double petals and drink in its gentle fragrance. Long, fine stems make this elegant beauty a stunning cut-flower. Flowers from late-spring to early-summer.

Dahlia 'Cafe Au Lait!' Another of our top floral picks

2. Dahlia ‘Cafe au Lait’

The dinner plate of Dahlias, its beautiful blooms can grow to 25-30cm, this flamboyant dahlia is a prolific producer of lasting blooms. Especially useful in late-summer/early-autumn in providing season-extending, creamy-blush colour. Another excellent bloom for gracing vases.

3. Rosa ‘Ferdinand Pichard’

The sublime stripes and of Ferdinand Pichard and deep, Old Rose fragrance make this a flamboyant gem to discover in the garden. Simply cut with frothy Alchemilla mollis for a vase to pep up inside spaces with striking flashes of bright pink and white. Can be grown as a climber or simply as a bushy shrub, its intial first show of blooms is followed by repeating flushes of flowers throughout the summer.

Top floral picks for insta-worthy greatness

4. Ornithogalum umbellatum

Sweet and dainty, this small bulb carries star-like flowers in April-May. Often over-looked in favour of the better-known Snowdrop, this hardy little delight will grow to form a ground-covering carpet reminiscent of the night sky, under optimal conditions – it likes sunny or partially sunny spots, in light, well-draining soil the best.

Salvia 'Amistad' - our Head Gardener's favourite and a really stunner with spikes of deep purple velvet flowers

5. Salvia ‘Amistad’

Striking deep purple flowers that appear like the finest velvet damask. This prolific bloomer has an unusually long flowering season, so you can enjoy its dramatic good looks all through summer and autumn, until the first frosts. Particularly beautiful against Cotswold stone. Prefers the spotlight of full sun beaming down to warm its aromatic foliage.

Gargantuan 'Giant Fennel' - deadheads look fabulous in Frost!

6. Ferula communis

There’s no misnomer here, Ferula communis or Giant Fennel is statuesque, though it may take several years to reach it’s full potential, your patience will be duly rewarded. Starting as mound of fine, feathery foliage, after a few years it can shoot up to 8-10ft during flowering season, when its firework like flowers burst forth. It may not flower every year, but when it does it will be worth the wait. It looks amazing as a centrepiece in a large border and is, in our Head Gardener’s opinion, probably the most beautiful plant when it’s spent blooms are dusted by frost.

Searching for some divine inspiration to liven up the look of your landscape? Our soft landscaping team create the dreamiest flowerscapes for all kinds of gardens.

Talk to us about your favourite flowers and we can help you create the most beautiful of nature’s canvases.

Laura Jones

Gardens and gardening have been a thread running through the very centre my life; from a childhood spent learning from the wealth of my mother's gardening knowledge to more recent years spent developing my own little plot. Having spent more than 20 years in the publishing and events industries, I found myself lucky enough to bring my inherent love for horticultural and my media expertise together, through my work here at The Oxfordshire Gardener (which comes with the added benefit of being able to continue to add to my storehouse of garden knowledge through the regular quizzing of our expert designers, brilliant horticulturalists and masterly landscaping team!).