With the excitement of Wimbledon fast approaching, there are a few fantastic inspirations that you can transfer into your own outdoor space for a beautiful floral tribute. At Hillier, we want to help you create the wonderful atmosphere right on your doorstep – the ideal place to eat your strawberries and cream!
Top Wimbledon Plant Choices
Roses
Roses are a wonderful inclusion for a Wimbledon garden due to their association and history within the event. Awarded to the Ladies’ Singles Champion, every year since 1886, is the Venus Rosewater Dish. Its purpose is designed to contain rose water (a popular 16th century perfume), symbolising purity and would be used as an expression of luxury. Thus, the rose an essential flower of Wimbledon and can be spotted as part of arbours around the courts, making it a wonderful choice in bringing the sporting occasion into your outdoor space.
Rose factfile
Flowering time: Summer and autumn
Sun requirements: Full sun/partial sun
Hardiness: Fully hardy
Size: Grows to approx. 90cm height
Petunia
Featuring in over 1500 troughs and 200 hanging baskets at the event, Petunias are a fantastic way of bringing a splash of Wimbledon colour into your garden. Whether you are using them within containers around your garden or alternatively as part of a border, they will bring the joy of Wimbledon from the spring through to autumn. Plant in hanging baskets to create a focal point that draws the eye upwards in your garden.
Petunia factfile
Flowering time: Spring to autumn
Sun requirements: Full sun
Hardiness: Tolerant of low temperatures, but not frost
Size: Grows to approx. 10cm x 50cm spread
Hydrangea
With over 8,000 Hydrangeas blooming at Wimbledon and a floral focus for more than 50 years, this stunning garden shrub is a reliable and attractive feature in the garden of a tennis-lover. They are famed for the abundance of flowers that they produce late in the summer season that last well in to autumn. They also provide winter attraction as their flower heads remain and look beautiful in the frost.
Hydrangea factfile
Flowering time: Late spring – early autumn
Sun requirements: Full sun/partial shade
Hardiness: Hardy, but late frosts may damage young shoots and buds
Size: Grows to approx. 600cm x 300cm spread
Wimbledon Through Colour & Shape
Wimbledon is known for its Wimbledon green and Wimbledon purple colouration with splashes of white keeping it fresh and clean.
Incorporating colour through flowers to achieve the ‘Wimbledon look’ is a great way of creating the theme in your outdoor space.
See the Hillier recommended plants for a great Wimbledon colour scheme and shape focal points below.
Euonymous
Certain varieties of Euonymous give you the best of both worlds when it comes to Wimbledon colour. Variegated leaves of green with a striking white border create a wonderful backdrop for beautiful purple flowers of other plants and it works well when grown as a low hedge, standalone specimen or in a patio pot.
Euonymus japonicus ‘White Spire’ is a fantastic choice as an attractive columnar form of this easy to grow evergreen shrub.
Euonymous factfile
Flowering time: Summer
Sun requirements: Full sun/partial shade
Hardiness: Fully hardy in most parts of the UK
Size: Can grow to approx. 450cm
Allium
Alliums are an undeniably great choice to bring Wimbledon to your doorstep. Not only can some varieties give the splashes of purple and even white highlights but the form and shape they take with their wonderfully showy flowerheads connote the great sporting event. Alliums bring magic to mixed borders or containers during summer and can look particularly effective planted in swathes of the same variety. When dried, allium seed head can be retained in the garden to give added all-year interest.
Flowering time: Spring-summer
Sun requirements: Full sun
Hardiness: Fully hardy
Size: Grows to approx 20cm in flower diameter
Rudbeckia
To highlight the vibrant optic yellow of the tennis ball Rudbeckia is a fantastic choice, working well in mixed or herbaceous borders and prairie planting. With dark, ovate and unusually narrow leaves, Rudbeckia adds the ideal pop of yellow to really bring your garden to life.
Hillier recommends Rudbeckia fulgida var. sullivantii ‘Goldsturm’, a hardy, clump-forming perennial producing upright stems bearing golden-yellow flowers with dark brown central cones.
Flowering time: Summer – autumn
Sun requirements: Full sun/partial shade
Hardiness: Hardy
Size: Grows to approx. 50cm x 100cm spread
Agapanthus
Similar to Alliums, Agapanthus can both provide great shape and colour to your Wimbledon in the garden. Available in a range of Wimbledon-friendly shades of both purple and white, Agapanthus produces open heads of small, trumpet-shaped flowers on tall stems. The clump forming perennials work beautifully in the front of the border or patio containers and, if well cared for, will return year after year, just in time for the tennis event.
Our Hillier top choice Agapanthus for a Wimbledon theme is Agapanthus ‘Bridal Bouquet’ that displays stark white flowers with strap-like green leaves.
Flowering time: Late spring – late summer
Sun requirements: Full sun
Hardiness: Hardy but may need winter protection
Size: Can grow between approx. 20cm – 150cm
Salvia
Salvia varieties can offer the stunning pop of purple colour that you’re looking for to enhance your Wimbledon look. They are fantastic plants for beds, borders and containers; long-flowering throughout the summer, highly attractive to butterflies and bees and frequently with delightfully scented foliage. Producing eye-catching flower spikes, they are a valuable inclusion for your outdoor space.
Flowering time: Late spring – summer
Sun requirements: Full sun
Hardiness: Hardy in most parts of the UK
Size: Grows to approx. 120cm height
Coreopsis Solanna ‘Golden Sphere’
Replicating both colour and shape of the fluorescent yellow tennis ball, Coreopsis Solanna ‘Golden Sphere’ is compact in form and provides and wealth of vibrant, eye-catching pom-pom shaped flowers. Coreopsis works well when part of an herbaceous border and really stands out amongst other shrubs.
Flowering time: Summer
Sun requirements: Full sun/partial shade
Hardiness: Hardy in most of the UK
Size: Grows to approx. 50cm x 50cm spread
Ilex Crenata
Ilex crenata are a great addition to your tennis-friendly garden with their topiarised shaping and solid green colour. They are very easy to grow and make excellent dwarf hedges, working well in courtyards or as edging for a fresh contemporary feel to the garden. They often produce delicate white flowers or berries during the autumn giving that added burst of Wimbledon colour.
Flowering time: In leaf all year, flowering spring – summer
Sun requirements: Full sun/partial shade
Hardiness: Hardy in most parts of the UK
Size: Grows to approx. 120cm height
Hillier top tip: Integrate Santolina rosmarinifolia ‘Lemon Fizz’ and Santolina chamaecyparissus for added interest and Wimbledon-relevance through foliage.
Santolia rosmarinifolia ‘Lemon Fizz’
With dainty lemon-yellow button-like flowers throughout summer, this cotton lavender also has bright lemon-yellow evergreen leaves. This versatile plant is suitable for a variety of garden styles including low maintenance, cottage and Mediterranean and will also work well in containers.
Flowering time: Summer
Sun requirements: Full sun
Hardiness: Hardy in most of the UK
Size: Grows to approx. 50cm x 100cm spread
Santolia chamaecyparissus
An evergreen shrub, Santolina chamaecyparissus displays long-stalked, button-like, bright yellow flowerheads during the summer months amongst silvery-woolly, dissected leaves. These are fantastic when worked into dwarf hedging, mixed borers or in containers.
Flowering time: Summer
Sun requirements: Full sun
Hardiness: Hardy in most parts of the UK
Size: Grows to approx. 60cm x 10cm spread
Now To Enjoy Your Strawberries & Cream!
Strawberries are ready to harvest between June and September, depending on variety. A clear indication of when the strawberries are ready to be picked is if they appear vibrant red in colour at the hottest time of the day.
Eat as soon as possible after picking as they don’t stay fresh for long!
Discover the Hillier recipe for Scones with strawberries and cream here.
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