Reader's question

Janice is redesigning a border in her back garden and is wanting to jazz things up a bit with contrasting colours such as dark purple and bright vibrant greens. She asks if I have any suggestions for plants that might fit the bill, but that will also be easy to look after, as she doesn’t get much time to tend the garden.

A FEW years ago you would be hard pushed to find enough interesting purple-leaved plants to a border, but nowadays there is a fantastic array to choose from. The first ones that spring to mind are the Sambucus family. They are relatives of the elderflower, but far less vigorous and much prettier. The main two are sambucus nigra, Black Beauty, and Purple Lace. The leaves are contrasted in summer by a frothing mass of pink and light purple flowers. They will grow into substantial bushes, but can be cut back as necessary.

Another purple-leaved favourite is the forest pansy (cercis candensis). This is a small compact tree with large heart-shaped leaves and pink pea-like flowers in spring. Cotinus coggygria has rounded leaves in a deep reddish shade or purple. The flowers are so abundant that it is nicknamed the smoke bush.

For smaller plants you could go for lobelia cardinalis, which has deep burgundy leaf spikes and a dark crimson flower, many varieties of heuchera, sedum purple emperor, ajuga reptens atropurpurea (a purple-leaved bugle with dark blue flowers) and for something a bit different, how about a large dark, almost black cow parsley topped with deep purple flowers (anthriscus sylvestris or Ravenswing)?

To complement and contrast with the purple plants try the golden cotinus, or any of the lime green acers. It might be fun to grow a golden hop (humulis lupus) up a tall wigwam in the middle. The staid, but durable Griselinia is a nice bright shrub, and tolerant of many conditions.

Some of the phormiums come in interesting bright shades, as do hostas.

Jobs this week

■ Prune back hardy outdoor fuchsias to within 6in of the ground. The new growth should be starting to come through now and will soon put on large amounts of growth.

■ Plant summer bulbs now, such as lilies, dahlias and nerines. These can be done in pots which can be sunk into the borders and then moved around to fill any dead spots later in the season when other plants have finished flowering. It also means that you can easily take the bulbs out of the ground and store them in a frost-free, dry place over the winter.

■ Spread a thick layer of mulch or wellrotted compost under hedges and around shrubs to provide them with nutrients, conserve moisture and suppress weeds.

■ Sow sweetcorn indoors in a greenhouse. This is best done in individual pots so as to disturb their roots as little as possible. Come late May, they can be planted straight into the ground.

Remember that they do better planted in blocks and not rows.

■ Brigid presents the BBC Tees Green Gardening and Great Outdoors show every Sunday from 11am to 2pm. Questions can be answered by emailing brigid.press@bbc.co.uk anytime during the week, or texting 07786-200995 and phoning 01642-225511 during the show.