Beds & Borders

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.

Aquilegia var. stellata 'Barlow Mix' is one of the really exceptional doubles forms of Aquilegia. It is the first Aquilegia series with fully double, spurless flowers. Stylish and elegant, with a graceful upright habit they grow to around 80cm tall. It produces many stems and makes an ideal cut flower.

Eye-catching, purple-black flowers with contrasting white centres appear in late spring and early summer above fern-like, mid-green leaves this variety is something special. 'William Guinness' is a superb and reliable Aquilegia variety that makes an ideal cut flower, it grows and blooms well in shady areas.

Mckana's Giant is a superior strain developed for its very large flowers with long graceful spurs. This exciting group of hybrid aquilegia in a very wide colour range, including combinations of white, pink, blue, yellow, crimson and scarlet, with crisp coloured outer petals, and cream/white coloured inner petals..

The 'Star' series was bred to have upward facing flowers; it is similar to the Mckana varieties but in single colours. With violet-blue petals with a pure white corolla, this early summer cottage garden favourite produces striking, long spurred blooms year after year.

The 'Star' series was bred to have upward facing flowers. With crimson-red sepals and creamy white centres, 'Crimson Star' has elegant long spurs and tidy mounds of fern like foliage. A superb and reliable Aquilegia variety that makes an ideal cut flower and herbaceous border feature.

Arabis is a very popular and useful plant and one of the best for the rockery. It is related to Aubrieta and is used in a similar fashion. 'Grandiflora Rosea' is a pink flowered cultivar that makes a good groundcover, it can be used in borders and is excellent for trailing over the edges of containers, over stones or down walls.

Arctotis was born to play a starring role, they are among the most brilliant of all flowers. 'Harlequin' is a beautiful strain with large, brilliantly coloured flowers with many different combinations, some with contrasting tones and all with a luminescent sheen. You'd be hard-pushed to find better performing plants.

Armeria Maritima 'Alba' is a beautiful white cultivar. One of the easiest grown perennials and a valuable rockery plant, and one that should always be included if choice is restricted. This compact, evergreen perennial grows in low clumps and sends up long stems from which globes of pure white blooms.

Easy to grow, undemanding and very long lived, it is no wonder that our little Thrift has been cultivated worldwide as a garden flower. Armeria maritima Splendens is a beautiful dark pink cultivar. With clumps of dark green, evergreen foliage it requires little water and very little maintenance.

Prized for its beautiful silvery foliage, the fine grey-white stems of Artemisia ludoviciana bear silvery-white leaves that are fragrant, fuzzy and soft. This finely textured plant adds a different element to the garden, the texture and leaf form setting them apart from those other garden plants with rather less refined foliage.

Artemisia stelleriana 'Mori's Strain' is a superior, dense, mat-forming selection. Uniquely shaped silver-white felted leaves with deeply divided, rounded lobes, it forms very attractive low mounds, giving an attractive ground-hugging carpet. Its foliage makes a wonderful foil for more colourful flowering plants.

Asperula orientalis, commonly known as Blue Woodruff is a charming little plant. A versatile and easy to grow annual which forms spreading mounds of airy foliage smothered in sweetly scented, clusters of tubular, sky-blue flowers.

Asphodeline lutea is an easy to grow perennial that has great architectural form. The overall impression is distinctly upright, so it is good for adding vertical interest to the garden. In early summer leafy stems arise that bear dense, unbranched cylindrical spikes of gorgeous yellow, star-shaped flowers.

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.

Bergenia cordifolia is one of the most useful of all plants and worthy of a place in any garden. No other plant offers such quality, glossy, evergreen foliage at ground level. This sturdy plant can be planted in groups as ground cover, for edging borders or to provide a foil for delicate foliage plants.