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This attractive plant will be equally at home in the flower border or keeping company with the sage and thyme in your herb garden. Delightfully aromatic, the floral-peppermint scent is subtly different from other mints. Mountain mint is a great nectar plant, its honey is much sought after.

Pulsatilla vulgaris 'Rote Glocke' is a lovely, deep-red form. Hardy and long lived, they are easy to grow. The flowers are produced very early, often opening while still under snow cover. They can develop into robust clumps after only a few years, with a dozen or more blooms out at any one time.

Pulsatilla vulgaris is now a very rare native species, the genus includes some of the loveliest of all flowering plants. In early spring, woolly, flower buds first appear, their silky foliage is deeply divided and covered with soft silvery hairs. The violet-purple flowers often opening while still under snow cover. These plants are always a delight.

Pulsatilla alpina subsp. alpina is a charming form, with white flowers, the outer segments flushed with bluish-purple. A favourite for collectors, they have a protracted flowering period and followed by attractive seed heads, they are showy, long-lived and reliable plants with a lengthy period of interest.

Pulmonaria obscura is an extremely rare species. Known from just three small locations in adjacent ancient Suffolk woodlands, covering an area of 18 square metres it has only 600 individual stands. One of the first perennials bloom in spring, the flowers are light red, changing to purple and to blue at maturity.

Prunella vulgaris is an interesting and quite beautiful little wildflower plant. The plants produce pretty blue-violet flowers in summer, the flowers freely produce nectar and are highly attractive to bees. If you’re looking for something to add to a meadow garden, or something for those shady areas this is the plant for you.

‘Noverna Deep Blue’ is a fascinating primula with the most intense, deep blue-violet flowers. The flared bell-shaped blooms emerge in summer in tight clusters, held aloft on powdery silver-white stems. This outstanding primula needs no pre-chilling and if sown early, will flower in its first year.

Of all garden Potentillas, this must surely be one of the most attractive. Potentilla ‘Monarch’s Velvet’ is a truly regal plant, with velvet crimson-red flowers above strawberry like foliage. Extremely cold-hardy and evergreen, and if started early it is apt to bloom its first year.

Venerating a former plant curator at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, Scotland, 'Ron McBeath' is a beautiful new semi-dwarf cultivar. This diminutive potentilla repeat-flowers for months, sending up wands of rosy carmine flowers even in shade. It outlasts other potentillas by far.

Potentilla 'Helen Jane' is a beautiful new semi-dwarf cultivar that displays gorgeous crimson-eyed, bright pink flowers, with petals that are attractively crinkled just like crepe paper. Flowering over a long period, new buds open repeatedly in a long succession, from late June to September.

Collected at altitude in Japan and introduced in 2006, Polemonium yezoense 'Purple Rain' is one of the best new introductions in recent years. With bronze-purple lacy foliage, dark stems and violet-blue flowers, it is the darkest flower form of Polemonium available.

The white form of the lovely Jacobs Ladder, named after the slender, fresh green leaflets arranged like the rungs of a ladder. Blooming in late spring to early summer, the bright foliage and white flowers will brighten shady locations. Both the flowers and the attractive ferny foliage are excellent for cutting.

Jacobs Ladder is an easy perennial to grow and is a very attractive plant for a border with moist but well-drained soil. The plants form a lush mound of deep green, ferny foliage, bearing upright stems with an endless succession of star-shaped blue flowers with contrasting yellow stamens.

The physostegia has prolific dazzling tubular flower spikes which are arranged on distinctly square stems. This oddly named perennial is perfect for the middle of a mixed or herbaceous border. The flowers are on swivels that can be bent right or left on the stem - a useful feature for floral displays.

The Cape Gooseberry is a useful small crop for the home garden. The fruit is expensive to purchase as it is labour intensive in commercial plantings. Very easy to grow from seed, it can overwinter outdoors in mild areas or when grown in favoured positions such as the foot of a sunny wall.