The Agapanthus is one of the aristocrats of the late summer garden. 'Peter Pan Blue' is a fine dwarf hybrid with neat clumps of leaves and large clusters of light- blue flowerheads. The exotic combination of graceful foliage and stunning flowers is equally impressive in the border or container.

For most of the year Ajuga is a pleasant, quiet achiever, a very versatile low growing ground cover, with evergreen, rosette-like foliage that hugs the ground like an evergreen carpet but those weeks in spring when the blue flowers appear are simply quite magical.

Aquilegia alpina is a species-columbine that rivals the fanciest cultivars and has been grown in gardens for as long as the idea of gardening has existed. It is a clump-forming perennial with deep blue-green, downy foliage and vibrant violet blue nodding flowers in late spring and early summer.

Native to Canada and the US in all states east of the Rockies, this superb variety is quite unlike the usual Aquilegia. Growing just twelve to eighteen inches tall, with dark-green foliage and eye-catching, scarlet and lemon-yellow flowers which hang like drifts of softly illuminated lanterns.

Native to New Mexico, Aquilegia skinnerii was brought into cultivation as early as 1865 and has been since forgotten until very recently with the re-introduction of this selected new strain. An unusually attractive species, with distinctive nodding flowers that are copper-red with golden yellow centres.

Pale greenish-white, pincushion-like flowers surrounded by a ruff of greenish white bracts are produced from June to October. The delicate Astrantia alba is perfect for naturalising in areas of moist, dappled shade. It works equally well in a woodland edge or in a mixed border.

Astrantia major “Primadonna” is a splendid and most attractive cultivated variety forming bushy plants, good for ground cover, and bearing long, loosely-branched stems of very lovely flowers in various shades of wine to deep red. The papery bracts remain presentable for months, rustling in every breeze.

This beautiful heirloom calendula was first available to gardeners in the 1930’s and is now quite hard to find. With shining orange flowers with quill-like petals that resemble a cactus dahlia. Very easy to grow, the beautifully shaped blooms flower even in the poorest conditions.

Cardamine pratensis is one of the most beautiful and one of the best loved of our wild flowers. It bears long narrow leaves and supremely elegant flowers in late spring/early summer. It flowers at the time the first cuckoo starts to call.

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

Chiastophyllum “Solar Yellow” is a lovely eye-catching perennial that makes an excellent evergreen ground cover all year long. In late spring golden bell-shaped flowers appear like dangling chains of tiny flowers which gives the plants a graceful, curved appearance and makes a spectacular display.