English Gardens traditionally have areas of beautifully soft pastel coloured flowers.
They can be used as edging or inside box hedges or planted in drifts in borders or allowed to self seed where they will

The word pastel actually means light, muted, soft, quiet and gentle, therefore your flowers will be shades of soft pink or yellow with delicate blues and muted lavenders.

These colours are gentle on the eyes and create a tranquil feel to your garden. Use them around seats where you want to relax or think.

All pastel shades go well together so you don't have to worry about clashing colours. The foliage can be silver or variegated as well as green.

Here is my selection of plants with pastel flowers that are ideal for an English cottage garden.They can be used in containers or grown in beds.

• Achillea millefolium has some delicate Pastel shades
• Aquilegia – Pink Bonnet has pale pink and white blooms
• Althaea rosea - Appleblossom – is covered in powder puff pale pink flowers from midsummer to fall a really beautiful cottage garden effect plant.

• Campanulas – try the dwarf pale pink ones
• Pastel coloured Foxgloves
• Incarvillea sinensis is a hardy annual that will give you a mass of soft pink blooms throughout the summer.

• Pastel sweetpeas
• Penstemons - look out the pale colours in your garden centre - especially good are the lilac ones.
• Pinks come in pastel shades and white as well as the brighter colours.

• Pastel roses – there are some gorgeous old fashioned roses such as climbing Awakening, or try Souvenir de St. Anne's which is also good in containers. Kathryn Morley and Mortimer Sackler are both pale pink.

Enjoy your English Garden