By Steragram
Pembrokeshire,
United Kingdom 
Can anyone suggest plants for providing late spring/early summer colour in places that will later be overhung? One is spot is in front of crocosmia Lucifer, where I could put tulips if I'd thought of it in time, and the other is among fuchsia bushes. There I could do with something like a not too tall geranium that subsides after flowering. I tried one last year but it was too tall and flowered its heart out (beautifully)all summer, obscuring the lower half of
F Beacon altogether.
2 Feb, 2013
Answers
Heucheras gives you so much different coats of colour and you also get flowers to.
3 Feb, 2013
Something like Saponaria ocymoides will provide pink flowers for about 4 weeks from May onwards - but remember to cut right back after flowering or it'll take over. Iberis sempervirens flowers fractionally earlier, but for as long, and provides evergreen ground cover at the same time. Arabis and Aubretia are okay, but they finish flowering earlier, so you'd have that gap between May and June, when the fuchsias start flowering.
3 Feb, 2013
what about solomons seal, pachysandra, pachyphragma, pulmonaria, brunnera, corydalis and lamium all would do in a shady ish spot.
3 Feb, 2013
Thank you everyone for all these suggestions !I had wondered if corydalis would be OK as I do love it. I'm tempted to have a mixture of this and some of the others and see which work best.
Bamboo, does the saponaria disappear in winter?
3 Feb, 2013
No, but it doesn't look great if the weather's been cold, unlike the Iberis.
4 Feb, 2013
Thank you. Looks like a shopping spree!
4 Feb, 2013
Geranium nodosum takes shade (although it can be a bit of a self-seeder). Geranium sanguineum is supposed to be a sun-lover but mine seem quite happy in part shade as well.
2 Feb, 2013