Be bold with your planting and think of how different varieties and colours can make an impact in your garden, says GINA PARKINSON

There are well-known plant combinations like climbing roses and clematis for example, but many gardeners come across good plant partnerships by accident and the ideas slowly spread to friends and neighbours.

Spring is an excellent time for seeing such combinations at work as plants are fresh and new, and gardeners are eager to get outside and see what is going on after the winter.

Dark-leafed plants combine well with lighter-flowered or pale-leafed specimens - gardener Beth Chatto uses this to good effect with carpets of Millium effusum 'Aureum' or Bowles golden grass planted with Viola labradorica 'Purpurea' planted in semi-shade.

The combination of the young, rich, golden leaves of the grass and the small, heart-shaped purple-suffused dark-green leaves of the viola is wonderful and especially so when the lilac flowers of the viola appear in April.

This idea of light and dark can be used to great effect with other plants too. Bowles golden grass looks good growing next to or through the black leaves of Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Nigrescens', while the glossy deep-purple leaves of ground-covering plant Ajuga reptans 'Atropurpurea' combines well with the bright green divided leaves of Galium odoratum.

The galium is an aromatic plant and is extremely useful in the garden where it will grow in shade or semi-shade under taller plants and shrubs putting up with quite poor and dry soil, although it is lusher in damper conditions.

It dies back in winter with shoots appearing in early spring and small star-shaped white flowers in summer. Ajuga is an evergreen ground-cover plant that carries short spikes of blue flowers in spring. It will tolerate sun and partial shade and most reasonable soils although it is best to avoid putting it in very dry areas.

A combination I have used this year is Euphorbia amydaloides 'Rubra' and white-flowered forget-me-not planted together in a bed that is sunny in the morning and in light shade for the rest of the day. This euphorbia is a variety of the common wood spurge and is smaller and slower growing than its rampant relative.

The red stems and purple-tinged leaves of 'Rubra' contrast startlingly with the yellow-green flowers carried in April and May, and the clumps of forget-me-not accentuate the colours of the euphorbia and fill the gaps at the base of the plant with light.

Updated: 09:30 Saturday, April 26, 2003