Grow the ingredients for this traditional British beverage (its been around for nearly 800 years, so must be good!). Both plants have a multitude of uses in their own right, but together make something really special. For a little extra kick, try adding a drop of gin to your 'D&B'

Borage is one of the most reliable sources of blue flowers, often flowering lavishly for weeks after sowing. The beautiful blue star-shaped flowers are edible and very important for bees, providing pollen and nectar in prodigious amounts.

This white flowered form of borage is not often written about. My first introduction was at the celebrated 'white' garden at Sissinghurst in England. The flowers are edible, garden visitors can be converted to herbal advocates simply by offering a taste of its white flower.

Regarded as both a nutritious vegetable and curative medicinal, the Burdock root is widely used in all sorts of cuisines from the classic English summer drink to the classic Japanese 'Kinpira'. Seeds can be also sprouted like bean sprouts; nothing goes to waste with this plant.

This is THE tea; the source of all non-herbal teas. As a plant it is good for informal shrub borders, natural hedges and privacy screening. It also makes a good background for herb gardens and is a great plant to grow in a container.

Camomile is a most useful plant. It can be used to make beautiful lawns and raised beds, an infusion of the plant is an ideal family remedy, calming and sedative, perfect for restlessness or travel sickness, while cold camomile tea is effective as a spray to prevent “damping-off” of seedlings

Coffee has two main varieties: arabica and robusta. Arabica is descended from the original Ethiopian coffee trees. The coffee made from this variety is mild and aromatic. It's the 'king' of coffee.

Coffea catura arabica is the most highly prized of the arabica coffees and valuable due to its superior flavour characteristics, it is the coffee that specialty roasters search for. Arabica coffee flavour can be described as fragrant, sweet often chocolaty, with a pleasant bitter note. Its also a lovely evergreen shrub.

Kona coffea arabica is a variety of coffee, cultivated on the slopes of Mount Hualalai and Mauna Loa in the North and South Kona Districts of the Big Island of Hawaii. Despite that its an easy evergreen shrub to grow at home.

Coffee canephora will take three to four years to mature but when they do they give brilliant white flowers with a beautiful sweet jasmine or orange-like fragrance. Dense clusters of flowers grow at the base of the evergreen dark green, oval leaves, enriching the entire room with their perfume.

Coffea Racemosa is one of the less-talked-about species although it has a reputation among coffee growers for having excellent quality beans. This bushy species from southern Africa branches readily and is an abundant producer. The plants are very odorous and remain rather short compared to other coffee species.

Dandelion is reviled by lawn manicurists yet, like Burdock, it is one of the most esteemed herbs in healing, the benefits are endless. The young raw leaves can be used in salads or cooked as a vegetable, the leaves contain more iron than spinach and are a excellent source of vitamins.

The fine clouds of feathery, bronze-purple leaves are wonderful as a centre piece for a sunny herb garden, or among tall perennials and grasses. The foliage acts as a delicate veil through which the flower heads of herbaceous plants and bulbs can be seen.