Hardy Perennials

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 for gardeners the tea is effective as a spray to prevent 'damping-off' of seedlings

'Snow in Summer' lives up to its name in late spring when the foliage is smothered in luminous white flowers. Beautiful used as a path edging, in a stone wall or cascading over containers. Try it amongst your spring bulbs - tall lily flowering tulips above a dense carpet of white Cerastium… Breathtaking!

Cephalaria gigantea is a gentle giant that has an informal look that is perfect for looser planting styles. With pretty pale butter-yellow scabious shaped flowers, use it as you would Verbena bonariensis planted at the back of a mixed or herbaceous border. The stems are tall but airy and 'see-through'.

Centranthus ruber is a Cottage garden favourite that’s made it into the style books. Sweetly-perfumed, dense clusters of reddish-pink flowers appear from July to October. They are ideal for attracting bees and butterflies and other pollinating insects into the garden and lovely when used as a cut flower.

Centranthus 'Snow Cloud’ produces airy clusters of white flowers that appear from July to October on tall, fleshy stems with glaucous leaves. Very long flowering, sweetly-perfumed and easy-to-grow from seed, given an early sowing Centranthus will flower from July right through to October.

Native to the meadows and woods of the mountains of Europe, Centaurea montana flowers from late spring with large flowers that are fringed in an intense violet-blue with deep purple centres and most attractive, very deeply cut petals. Easy to grow, it is an excellent garden plant as well as cut flower.

Centaurea macrocephala is a magnificent perennial that ideal for providing vertical interest in a sunny, well-drained herbaceous border. The golden-yellow shaggy thistle-like blooms are on strong stems and mid-green, lance-shaped leaves are followed by attractive seed heads.

Persian Cornflower is an attractive clump forming cornflower, with bushy, branched plants and the unusual characteristic of being perennial and flowering in the first year. Very adaptable to both dry and moist locations. Large deep lavender-pink blooms adorn the divided foliage throughout summer.

Catananche caerulea 'Amor White' produces stunning blooms of white, star like flowers each with a dark purple-blue eye and unique papery petals. The blooms rise on single stems above neat clumps of grey-green foliage. Super when planted the border, they also make a wonderful, long lasting cut or dried flowers.

Catananche caerulea 'Amor Blue' is a charming plant, with blue, star like flowers each with a dark eye and unique papery petals. They look best when grown in groupings, rather than one or two plants and don’t mind crowding. Plant en-masse in prairie style or meadow plantings, mix them up a little with other hardy perennials and grasses.

Calamintha nepeta is a very attractive bushy, perennial that should be in every garden. Clouds of tiny, lilac-mauve flowers appear in early summer and flower continuously from early June right through to late September. The leaves exude a lovely minty scent when crushed and the flowers are true bee pasture.

Ornamental Grass Briza maxima has blue green leaves and flower heads that hang like scaly little heart shaped lockets that are tinged with pink from late spring to mid summer. They make a wonderful cut flower and flowering in 10 to 12 weeks from spring sowing, they are very easy to grow to perfection.

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.

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 '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.

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.

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.

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.