Hardy Perennials

Anchusa italica is a wonderfully statuesque plant with vibrant, gentian blue flowers, dense foliage and lance shaped mid green leaves. 'Dropmore' is a 1905 selection that is still available today. They will thrive in a sunny border and make a great companion to rich plums and purple tones.

Japanese Anemones are among the best late summer and autumn border flowers. The flowers open from round, silk-covered buds and in summer rain, look like pearls glistening in the border. Blooming from August to late October, they help push the show into autumn and provide colour when most gardens begin to fade.

In horticulture Cota tinctoria is still widely referred to by its synonym Anthemis tinctoria. This beautiful aromatic, hardy perennial that is fast to flower and often used as a biennial produces masses of golden yellow daisies from June through to September. Historically used for natural dyeing, this is an ideal plant for naturalised and pollinator friendly plantings.

In addition to having one of the most unusual names, Antirrhinum braun-blanquetii, is also one of the few hardy perennial species of snapdragon. Named for Josias Braun-Blanquet an influential 20th century Swiss botanist it bloom the first year from seed producing numerous spikes from which delicate yellow, large snapdragon blooms appear.

Aquilegia atrata is a beautiful free flowering species that is native to the alpine meadows and forest clearings of Switzerland and Northern Europe. With many branching stems of deepest coloured, almost black flowers. This is an outstanding, highly sought species that would be a showstopper in any garden.

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.

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.

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.

Aubrieta 'Hendersonii' is a vigorous variety that is smothered by rich lilac-purple flowers for several months in spring. It grows to only 10 to 15cm tall at maturity, but with a spread of around 45cm it makes a lively edging to a sunny border, growing over rock walls or placed in stonewalls.

Commonly called ‘Rock Cress’, Aubrieta is a traditional rock garden plant that is lovely spilling out of crevices, growing over rock walls or placed in stonewalls. 'Leichtlinii' forms a low cushion of leaves that is, throughout the summer months, smothered by wonderful deep-carmine flowers.

Aubrieta has long been treasured for its delightful spring show of brightly coloured flowers. ‘Whitewell Gem’ is smothered by large, intense reddish-purple flowers for several months. Lovely spilling out of crevices or over rock walls, the plants can also be used in paving with other ground hugging plants.

Aubrietia is a very versatile plant. They are well known for use in rockeries, but the cushion forming habit also makes it useful as a ground cover; it can be planted in beds and is perfect for underplanting shrubs. they can also be used between paving and walls, or create a wonderful foil for spring bulbs.

This pretty little wildflower is a slow growing, long-lived plant with attractive spikes of rich pink-mauve flowers that are very attractive to bees and butterflies as a nectar source. The flowers, which rise from dark green crinkly leaves, keep their colour throughout summer and look stunning when growing en-masse.