Plan a bed

Plants with pink flowers

Plants with pink flowers, from shell pink to magenta, and how to keep cool pinks and warm pinks from fighting.

Pink is the commonest flower colour among the planner's plants after white, and the colour of the cottage garden: roses, peonies, phlox, hardy geraniums and hydrangeas. It is red softened with white, so it never shouts the way red does, and a bed can take a great deal of it.

The one thing to watch is that pinks come in two families. Cool pinks lean towards blue: rose, cerise and magenta. Warm pinks lean towards yellow: salmon, coral and peach. Cool pinks go with purple, blue and silver leaves; warm pinks go with apricot, cream and bronze. Side by side, the two families make each other look dirty.

Hydrangeas are the biggest group here, and they come to pink two ways. Panicle and oakleaf hydrangeas open white and age to pink whatever the soil. Bigleaf and mountain hydrangeas change with the soil: pink where it is alkaline, blue where it is acid, because only then can the plant take up the aluminium that turns it blue. Every plant here has pink flowers, or comes in pink.

369 plants: 213 perennials, 34 bulbs, 7 grasses and 115 shrubs.

The dozen to start with

  • Garden phlox

    Garden phlox

    3½ ft · mid July to early September · also in white and purple

    Tall, often fragrant clusters of flowers that carry colour through the height of summer.

  • Japanese camellia

    Japanese camellia

    10 ft · early February to early April · also in red and white

    Polished, dark evergreen leaves and large, formal flowers in red, pink or white from late winter into spring.

  • Delphinium

    Delphinium

    5 ft · late June to mid July · also in blue, purple and white

    The great blue spire of the English border: dense columns of flowers up to head height in early summer.

  • Hyacinth

    Hyacinth

    10 in · mid April to early May · also in blue, purple, white and yellow

    Dense, waxy spikes of intensely fragrant flowers in blue, purple, pink, white or soft yellow, in mid-spring.

  • Chaste tree

    Chaste tree

    11½ ft · early July to early September · also in lilac and white

    A large shrub or small, multi-stemmed tree with aromatic, grey-green, fingered leaves and long spikes of lavender-blue flowers in the heat of summer, loved by bees and butterflies.

  • Japanese pieris

    Japanese pieris

    8 ft · late March to late April · also in white

    An elegant evergreen with drooping chains of white or pink, lily-of-the-valley bells in early spring, and new leaves that open bronze or bright red.

  • Garden chrysanthemum

    Garden chrysanthemum

    24 in · mid September to late October · also in yellow, orange, red, purple and white

    The florist's mum: dense domes of daisies, pompoms or buttons in every autumn colour.

  • Bleeding heart

    Bleeding heart

    2½ ft · early May to early June · also in white

    An old-fashioned favourite with arching stems of heart-shaped flowers in late spring.

  • Tulip

    Tulip

    18 in · late April to mid May · also in red, yellow, white, purple and orange

    Clean, saturated colour on upright stems in mid to late spring.

  • Common lilac

    Common lilac

    11½ ft · early May to late May · also in lilac, purple and white · host plant

    The lilac of old farmyards: large, heavily scented flower trusses in lilac, purple, white or pink in mid-spring, on a tall, suckering shrub that can live for a century.

  • Canna

    Canna

    5 ft · early July to early October · also in red, orange and yellow · host plant

    Huge, paddle-shaped leaves, green, bronze or striped, topped with bright flowers in red, orange, yellow or pink from midsummer to frost.

  • Pink muhly grass

    Pink muhly grass

    3 ft · mid September to early November

    In October a quiet mound of wiry, dark green leaves disappears under a billowing cloud of vivid pink that looks like cotton candy.

A bed planned only from these plants

The planner was given only the plants on this page that suit zone 6 and full sun, and designed this 16 × 8 ft (4.9 × 2.4 m) bed from them when the page was made.

A 16 × 8 ft (4.9 × 2.4 m) bed at eye level in mid August: Dianthus 'Kahori', Winter heath, Culver's root 'Fascination', Calico aster 'Lady in Black', Joe Pye weed 'Little Joe', Columbine meadow rue, Rose turtlehead, Shrubby cinquefoil, Darwin hybrid tulip, Hyacinth.
A 16 × 8 ft (4.9 × 2.4 m) cottage garden in zone 6, full sun, seen from the path in mid August.
3. Culver's root 'Fascination'33. Culver's root 'Fascination'33. Culver's root 'Fascination'35. Joe Pye weed 'Little Joe'55. Joe Pye weed 'Little Joe'55. Joe Pye weed 'Little Joe'58. Shrubby cinquefoil84. Calico aster 'Lady in Black'41. Dianthus 'Kahori'11. Dianthus 'Kahori'11. Dianthus 'Kahori'11. Dianthus 'Kahori'11. Dianthus 'Kahori'12. Winter heath22. Winter heath22. Winter heath22. Winter heath22. Winter heath21. Dianthus 'Kahori'11. Dianthus 'Kahori'11. Dianthus 'Kahori'11. Dianthus 'Kahori'15. Joe Pye weed 'Little Joe'57. Rose turtlehead77. Rose turtlehead77. Rose turtlehead72. Winter heath22. Winter heath22. Winter heath27. Rose turtlehead77. Rose turtlehead77. Rose turtlehead77. Rose turtlehead77. Rose turtlehead71. Dianthus 'Kahori'11. Dianthus 'Kahori'11. Dianthus 'Kahori'16. Columbine meadow rue66. Columbine meadow rue66. Columbine meadow rue69. Darwin hybrid tulip9. Darwin hybrid tulip9. Darwin hybrid tulip9. Darwin hybrid tulip9. Darwin hybrid tulip9. Darwin hybrid tulip9. Darwin hybrid tulip9. Darwin hybrid tulip10. Hyacinth10. Hyacinth10. Hyacinth10. Hyacinth10. Hyacinth10. Hyacinth10. Hyacinth10. Hyacinth10. Hyacinth10. Hyacinth10. Hyacinth10. Hyacinth
From above, to scale. Each circle is one plant, as wide as the room it needs.

The plants

  1. 1 Dianthus 'Kahori' × 12, pink
  2. 2 Winter heath × 8, white
  3. 3 Culver's root 'Fascination' × 3, lavender
  4. 4 Calico aster 'Lady in Black' × 1, white
  5. 5 Joe Pye weed 'Little Joe' × 4, pink
  6. 6 Columbine meadow rue × 3, lavender
  7. 7 Rose turtlehead × 8, pink
  8. 8 Shrubby cinquefoil × 1, yellow
  9. 9 Darwin hybrid tulip × 8, yellow
  10. 10 Hyacinth × 12, blue

Planned as a cottage garden: 40 of the 40 plants (100%), bulbs aside, stand alone or in groups of no more than five, small enough for the kinds to mingle. Something is in flower for 39 weeks, from late January to mid October. The flowering is at its height from mid August, with 5 kinds out together.

The planner's own design check: 12 Excellent, 5 Good.

Open this bed in the planner Change its size, the sun or the style, move plants about, or swap one for another.

All 369 plants

Show all 369, by where they go in a bed

Front of a bed 127

Middle of a bed 106

Back of a bed 136

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