Shrubs

Seldom offered as seed, Abutilon x hybridum is a popular group of hybrids that are frost-tender shrubs typically growing 60 to 90cm tall. The lantern-like buds open to solitary, pendulous, bell shaped flowers up to 8cm in diameter.

The muted slate-blue flowers and slender blue-green leaves of Amsonia hubrichtii create a perfect foil for those summer perennials that love the limelight. From a distance the flowers have an almost lily-like appearance, but it is in autumn with Amsonia hubrichtii reaches its true glory when the leaves and stems turn brilliant gold.

Amsonia illustris is perhaps the boldest of the Amsonias, a little taller and showier with shiny green leaves and larger blue flowers. They flower reliably year after year, are not fussy about soil or situation and are very hardy. The foliage stays green through summer and turns a brilliant gold in the autumn. This is an extraordinary long lived designer perennial that deserves wider use.

One of the loveliest of the species, Amsonia tabernaemontana is a rarely seen, easy to grow perennial that gives reliable performance year after year. It will create a massive impact when their flower buds open to reveal elegant blue flowers in spring and summer, and will provide shining colour in autumn. Long-lived and adaptable, this attractive and unusual addition to the border warrants more inclusion in our gardens.

These exotic beauties, native to South America, can transform a terrace or patio into a tropical paradise. Angel Trumpets are large shrubs with lush foliage and masses of delightfully fragrant trumpets. In the cool, moist air of evening, their fragrance is spellbinding.

This shrubby brugmansia is a heavy bearer of stunning pendulous yellow flowers, it is delightful when grown in a patio pot and may be grown indoors with bright light and warmth, where it can be pruned to desirable size. The flowers are especially fragrant in the evening.

Brugmansia suaveolens, or 'Angel Trumpets' are large shrubs with lush foliage and masses of delightfully fragrant blooms. Often blooming the first year from seed, a mature plant may display as many as 80 to 100 blooms at one time. They can transform a terrace or patio into a tropical paradise.

Buddleia blooms all summer long with an intoxicating scent just as overwhelming as their colour show. There is no denying that these shrubs are butterfly magnets. If you plant one, they will find it. Have your camera ready!

One of the grandest of plants, Euphorbia characias 'Wulfenii' has upright stems clothed with whorls of fleshy, mat grey-green leaves that lend the whole plant a textural quality that is unparalleled. From March to June the plants are topped with intense chartreuse-green flowers'.

Euphorbia griffithii is plant of many talents. From June through to September, stunning, fiery, bright orange-red flowers with attractive, brick-red bracts make an eye-catching, showy feature in the border. In autumn ember-like colours, orange, red, crimson, and gold transforms the foliage like a smoldering sunset.

Euphorbia lathyris is an ornamental biennial plant with upright unbranched stems which carry four rows of rigidly arranged deep green leaves. Commonly known as the Caper Spurge or Mole Plant. The seeds grow in green clusters of three seeds and look a little like Capers. The plant is reputed to deter moles.

Euphorbia x pasteurii has only been on the garden scene for about four years. With yellow honey scented flowers from April to June and clothed in narrow, leathery evergreen dark green leaves with a distinctive, creamy-white central midrib, it makes a very attractive, rounded architectural form.

The wild rose bursts with lightly scented, usually flesh pink flowers (though they can be pinker or whitish) in summer. They are followed by a terrific show of bright red hips, they can be used to make jam, jelly, syrup, marmalade and wine. Delicious and an excellent natural source of vitamin C.

Prized for their beauty, fragrance, novelty and adaptability, miniature roses are the queen of flowers. This diminutive Chinese native grow to about 12 to 18 inches high in containers and baskets and blooms just 3 to 5 months from sowing. Although hardy, it can be grown as an annual when started early.