As Councillor Steve Davis, Chair of the Valley Gardens Working Group, commented, ‘Valley Gardens is an important gateway to the city and one of the first areas people see.’ Greenwood Plants top quality bedding plants and wildflowers so that Cultura group were able to create an impressive vista visible from the road and to be enjoyed by pedestrians and those relaxing on benches in the green spaces.

Greenwood used a variety of plants including evergreens, perennials and annuals, with a range of complementary colours, textures, heights and habits. This ensured both instant impact and long-lasting beauty. The evergreen Achillea ‘Coronation Gold’ was one of the taller flowers with its bold discs of yellow blooms, flowering through summer and autumn. The171 Campanula lactiflora ‘Loddon Anna’ (milky bellflower) provided are also tall, but their clusters of small, bell-shaped flowers in a wonderful soft pink hue beautifully complement brighter flowers.

Among the perennials was the delightful foam flower Tiarella ‘Spring Symphony’. Greenwood supplied 81 of these shy beauties, whose spires of small, star-shaped flowers open lacy-white from blushing pink buds. Other varieties included the delicate Anemone nemorosa (wood anemone), Viola cornuta Alba Group (horned pansy) and Vinca minor f. alba ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ (small white periwinkle), all of which have delightful white blossoms to add sparkles of interest to low-growing foliage.

Grasses such as Deschampsia cespitosa ‘Goldschleier’ and Calamagrostis brachytricha (Korean feather reed grass) add texture with their delicate arching stems, in addition to shimmering colour and movement.