Need quick growing plants for (nearly!) instant impact

[Ultravox]

Hi all,
I’m having a party in my garden in 4 weeks time. I want to make it look colourful and bright and would love it if you could give me suggestions for some easy to grow flowers that won’t look like I’ve just planted them! They will be in pots and I don’t want to spend an absolute fortune.

Thanks!

Pelargoniums and fuschias. Garden centres are still stacked out with them and some of the ones near me are starting to reduce summer bedding now.

You should be able to pick up plants in the sales now - most people purchased their bedding plants already - so you might pick up geraniums for pots cheaply just now.

Also an eye-opener for me, just visited my first ever carboot sale - lots of plants there - very good value compared to garden centres.

There's something that's a bush and it gets big quickly. It's got blue spheres for flowers about marble to golf ball sized. Don't know what it's called but if you Google you might be able to find it. It also looks good.

What's wrong with plants looking like you've just planted them? Nothing is going to grow from a seedling into a blooming and large plant in 4 weeks. Freshly planted tubs look great.

I'd go to the supermarket or garden centre and see what there is. Just make sure you check the label for if it needs to go in sun, partial shade or shade and choose according to the attributes of your space.

@CatOnAStarCloud Echinops ritro?

https://www.crocus.co.uk/plants/_/echinops-ritro-veitchs-blue/classid.2730/sku.RH30000149/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw1920BhA3EiwAJT3lSTQQ3hVWvjUL2VJ-y1qAwfLNaG9909_9PHEOVk7-CoOFx1p0eSoaLRoC_BAQAvD_BwE

How big is your garden? Are they going in the ground or in pots? How much sun does your garden get and which direction does it face? What is there now?

Buy some cut flowers on discount on the day or day before. Most supermarkets will discount their cut flowers heavily when they start to wilt. Cut down and place in cold water with some sugar and they'll perk up. You can often pick up other plants in pots on discount from supermarkets (Lidl sometimes has cheap bedding plants) and again just cut off dead leaves/flowers and plant quite densely and they should look good, especially if you get them now. Even cheap pots of herbs can look quite nice if you plant or place densely.
Other than that cress is about the only thing that will grow reliably from seed in that time frame! Lol.

I thought of echinops, too, but they’re very prickly!

Not noticed any prickles on the one I got. I don't think it's necessarily only one plant. Maybe one plant family? Thistle doesn't sound right because it doesn't sound like a bush that if left unchecked will grow to around the height of a fruit tree. The flowers look kinda right though. Imagine a plant covered in those all over, with smallish green leaves too. A small one would look like a bouquet of pom-poms.

I should add I got it decades ago and no longer live there. I'm not being awkward in not posting a pic.

Thanks for the tips! I do have some random plants in beds but they all seem to be past flowering. Also have some hanging baskets with petunias which are doing well but just wanted the garden to look great! I’ll head round the supermarkets and go to a garden centre tomorrow and see what bedding plants I can acquire. I like the look of the Echinops so will keep my eyes peeled for that.

Garden is sheltered, faces north but gets a reasonable amount of sun. Plants will be going in big round pots that I’ve just bought from Aldi.

Geraniums. Get 10-20 plants in same or complementary colours (eg red and pink) as you’ll get a more striking effect than mixing up loads.

Foxgloves are good too, and many reduced now in garden centres.

The flowers are white instead of blue, but could it be viburnum opulus?

Bizzy Lizzy or is it Busy Lizzy?

@CatOnAStarCloud Ceanothus?

Big fluffy, pink hydrangeas maybe? 🌸🌸

Hydrangeas won't grow quickly but they could be obtained at the desired size, although that wouldn't be cheap.

As suggested by a few people l, geraniums are easily obtained and will give impact with their often strong colours.

I suppose the thing to be careful of with geraniums and similar is not to have a load of clashing colours.

I planted a new raised bed with cosmos about a month ago as a temporary measure for this summer…8 bedding plants cost me £6. They looked a bit sparse when they went in but the bed looks completely full now (thanks to the rain maybe) and lots of flowers.
I’d also consider if you can get any dahlia plants…ideally big ones rather than bedding ones. By mid August they should look great. I have a happy days dahlia in a pot near back door (admittedly it’s not that big) which everyone comments on.
Given it’ll be mid August I’d go for hot colours…reds, oranges, darker pinks maybe and pick some reddish foliage?

Similar but I don't think so. The flowers look too big, like each individual flower that makes up the ball I mean. And the leaves aren't dark enough and I think they're too big too. I never noticed berries either and those ones are quite distinctive so I think I would have.

Yeh I think that's it!