Dry Areas

Penstemon barbatus 'Twizzle Coral' adds a graceful twist to the garden. A first year flowering perennial, that is hardy and vigorous, it boasts twice the length of flowering stems, giving longer, more elegant wands for the vase while preserving the natural elegance of Penstemon barbatus.

A winner of both an AAS and Fleuroselect Awards, Penstemon ‘Twizzle Purple' is a first year flowering perennial that boasts twice the length of flowering stem. Strong, trouble-free plants produce trumpet shaped magenta-violet blooms that flutter all along tall, slender stems.

Awarded the Fleuroselect Gold Medal for striking colour, plant habit, and flowering performance, Penstemon barbatus 'Twizzle Scarlet' is a first year flowering perennial that will add height and high-impact colour to the border, giving superb flowering performance from mid to late summer.

Penstemon barbatus 'Twizzle White' adds a graceful twist to the garden. A first year flowering perennial, that is hardy and vigorous, it boasts twice the length of flowering stems, giving longer, more elegant wands for the vase while preserving the natural elegance of Penstemon barbatus.

Petunia 'Celebrity' is an impressive and dependable series that has been wowing gardeners for more than a decade. They have the fastest average bloom time, beginning just 43 days after sowing, when the plants are no more than 10cm tall. Unrivalled for long-lasting colour the 'Niagara Mix' is lovely blended mix of blues.

Like favorite guests at a party, Celebrity Petunias come early and stay late. They are unrivaled for long-lasting colour, have great resistance to adverse weather and bounce back quickly after rain. The 'Pastel Mix' is lovely blend of complementary colours, salmon, chiffon morn, rose, pink and lilac.

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.

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.

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.

Rosularia is a rosette forming succulent that closely resemble other Crassulaceae such as Sempervivum and Echeveria. It distinguishes itself in spring time when the small green clusters change to a vibrant rich reddish tone. Rare yet hardy, they are seldom seen other than in specialist nurseries or rock garden collections.

An absolute gift to flower arrangers, this is a noble and ornamental plant for the back of any border making nice clumps of foliage. It is, of course, the flowers that are remarkable: three or four inches across, “green” is one’s immediate impression on seeing them.

Salvia farinacea ‘Fairy Queen’ is an attractive new variety that bears multiple spikes of bicolour blue and white flowers on dark distinctive flower stems from June to October. With a bushy, compact habit and thick stems. A small white spot on each sapphire blue flower creates the illusion of fairy dust.

Salvia Victoria White is a companion to the more well known Victoria Blue. Flowering in less than four months from seed, it produces its white flowers from summer to autumn. Like all Salvia, it brings butterflies into the garden by the dozen, and makes a wonderful cut or dried flower.

Salvia sclarea var. turkestanica 'Vatican White' is a choice white cultivar that is not that easy to find. A nobly architectural Sage, each of its branched stems is topped with a profusion of blossoms with brilliant white bracts. The flowers are attractive and are boosted in impact by the large petioles that surround them.

This hardy biennial Sage has been grown in almost every botanical sanctuary in human history and has many plus points: it grows well in poor soil resists slugs and other beasties, and doesn’t slump or need staking. It copes well in sun or light shade and the blooms are a magnet for bees and butterflies.

Santolina, commonly known as Lavender Cotton is a small shrub with soft, woolly, finely divided foliage, that make neat, rounded bushes. They are valuable for mass planting, ideal for knot gardens and small hedging around herb gardens etc. It will stand any amount of clipping and shaping - a perfect plant for control freaks.

Saxifraga x arendsii 'Purple Robe' are compact, free-flowering, and easily raised from seed. These charming perennials quickly form an evergreen verdant mat. Excellent as alpine plants for a rockery or trough, use them spilling over low walls, as a path edging or green roof.

Scabiosa columbaria produces a mass of lilac-blue flowers. It was the original native plant material from which many award winning garden cultivars have been bred. Perhaps because this is one native that looks equally at home in a garden border or wildflower meadow.