On 11/07/2011 23:38, Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote:
In ,
Roger writes
My local mobile post office man threw this one at me today.

He has a wooded area, mainly of cob nuts, with a carpet of bluebells
underneath. He would like to plant some contrasting flowers (red and
yellow/white) to flower with the bluebells. In spring, the canopy is
quite thin, but gets thicker during the summer, but still has light
coming through. At least 6" of the soil is just leaf mould.

What would anyone suggest?

Among the common flowers of woodland floors are Allium ursinum (ramsons)
and Anemone nemorosa (wood anemone). The former is white, the latter is
usually white; sometimes pink or blue. I forget the precise flowering
times, but IIRC the Anemone flowers well in advance of bluebells.

White could be provided with Convallaria majalis (Lily of the Valley).

There is a yellow anemone (Anemone ranunculoides); the hybrid between
this and Anemone nemorosa is cream-flowered.

There are white and pink bluebells - even white and pink forms of the
native bluebell.

Another pink-flowered plant is Claytonia siberica (pink purslane).

Red is hard. Most spring flowering plants are in the white to yellow or
blue spectrum.

Not sure that red isn't impossible! I suppose you could cheat a bit
with the orange-red fruits of Arum maculatum (Cuckoo Pint; Lords and
Ladies).

Even non-natives wouldn't help much - and then they wouldn't look right.
Some of the maroon-flowered Trilliums, maybe. Red-flowered hybrid
polyanthus would be too garish. Most other small red-flowered plants I
can think of all require more sun than would be available in a woodland
setting after the leaves appear on the trees (although bluebells only
grow well in a wood because they are out-competed by other plants
outside the wood which they out-compete within the wood. Maybe that
might apply to other plants we generally assume - maybe incorrectly - to
be sun-lovers only if we tried planting them in the shade).

In any case I doubt that the timing would be right for the April/May
flowering of bluebells, even if a suitable shade-tolerant red-flowered
plant could be found.

--

Jeff