Butterfly Garden

Achillea ‘Cerise Queen’ is a carefree and generously blooming perennial which requires little maintenance to create an explosion of late summer colour. The large, flat-topped clusters of vibrant, pink flowers with tiny white centers are irresistible to butterflies, and also make excellent cut flowers.

Achillea ‘Colorado Mix’ is a compact variety growing to only 60cm tall at maturity. Flowering in warm shades of pink, red, yellow, white and apricot, the narrow fern-like foliage will soften your perennial border and the plants are suitable for pots or containers. The flowers are as gorgeous dried as they are fresh.

Achillea is a joy to the gardener for its undemanding adaptive nature and its eagerness to perform. ‘Summer Pastels’, with a soft mix of pastel coloured flowers is very easy to grow, flowering in just four months from sowing and producing flowers in abundance from spring to first frosts.

Achillea sibirica var. camtschatica 'Love Parade' is an upright, tufted, perennial yarrow that is native to Siberia. Very different from the common yarrow, with dense clusters of large flat-topped soft pink flowers and glossy, dark green, fern-like leaves, they remain attractive throughout the growing season.

It is only within the past decade that a number of new noteworthy members of the genus Agastache have emerged from botanical obscurity. ‘Apricot Sprite’ is an outstanding perennial that provides a sizzling blast of tubular, peachy-apricot flowers. Compact and quick growing, they flower in the first year from seed.

Agastache foeniculum is a perennial herb that tastes as good as it looks and are as popular in the border as they are in the herb garden. They are excellent design plants, exhibiting a strong vertical accent for the perennial border. Bees hold an undisputed attraction for the flowers, the colour, shape and copious amounts of nectar are among their favourites. This is perhaps one of the most gratifying plants you can grow.

Agastache 'Golden Jubilee' has one of the most remarkable leaf colour of any plant. This bright gold-chartreuse beauty offers late season punctuation and purple bottle-brush flowers which are a powerhouse source of nectar and pollen for bees, butterflies and other beneficial insects.

Agastache ‘Arcado Pink’ is a magnificent first year flowering perennial. An extremely floriferous variety with lovely purple-pink flower spikes and fresh green aromatic foliage. This Fleuroselect Novelty Award Winner is both vibrant in colour and stamina. The aromatic leaves are edible, young growth can be sprinkled in salads, used to decorate cakes, to make a tea or floated in drinks. Agastache added to your Pimms lifts it to a higher sphere altogether.

Agastache 'Astello Indigo' is just about the most exciting breakthrough yet and it's got the award to prove it - Europe's coveted Fleuroselect Gold Medal. Compact and quick growing, they flower in the first year from seed with fabulous, upright spikes that are fully covered with deep indigo-blue flowers. The masses of fragrant blooms throughout the summer are ideal for cutting. They produce copious amounts of nectar for bees and butterflies to feast upon.

Originally bred by Brian Kabbes and developed in his nursery of ‘perennials and botanical rarities’, Agastache ‘Globetrotter’ has soft, touchable flower spikes that are lilac-pink with carmine-red bracts. Leaves used to decorate cakes, to make a tea or floated in drinks. Added to your Pimms lifts it to a higher sphere altogether. They must have one of the prettiest flowers of all this very pretty family.

Agastache ‘Liquorice White’ has tall spikes of white lipped flowers and like all Agastache produces copious amounts of nectar for bees and butterflies to feast upon. Flowering late in the season, it is a boon for building up bees’ honey reserves before winter and will produce a honey surplus where drifts are grown.

Agastache 'Liquorice Blue' has tall spikes of lavender to rich purpley blue lipped flowers, above toothed dark green arrow shaped foliage. When brushed past or crushed, the foliage emits a sweet liquorice perfume. A wonderful plant for attracting bees and butterflies to the garden.

Alcea ficifolia is reliably perennial and unlike the biennial forms which produce a single spire, they produce many upright stems, resulting in a bushy form. ‘Happy Lights’ is a beautiful strain, a bold blend of white, pink, purple, red, and yellow blooms. If sown early they will bloom in their first year.

Alcea ficifolia is a less-known variety of hollyhock. Reliably perennial, with attractive palmate foliage, the plant produces many upright stems and has a bushy form. 'Single Mix' produces large, single saucer shaped flowers that appear from May to October in a gorgeous variety of shades - cream, gold, rose pink, copper and plum.

‘Chater’s Double’ give a wonderful mixed colour range of large, fully double flowers that are nearly pom-pom in appearance. Rosettes of big hairy leaves will develop by autumn then die back before winter. It will bloom the following summer .... the word bloom being an understatement!

This gorgeous award winning Hollyhock has the distinction of being the shortest in the Alcea rosea family. 'Queeny' is a dwarf Hollyhock that reaches only 60cm in height with fully double blooms. Unlike the tall varieties, it is a perennial that can also be used as an annual as it will bloom in its first year.

Hollyhocks are a mysterious and prolific flower with a long and rich history. Traditionally associated with cottage-style borders, the dramatic, near-black flowers of Nigra work equally well in a contemporary, minimalist garden. This unique variety creates an impressive impact against most backgrounds.

Allium connoisseurs will tell you this little-known Allium is the most beautiful of them all. They point to nodding clusters of delicate wavy-edged bells in soft shades of rose and lilac set above masses of slender grass-like glaucous foliage. Allium narcissiflorum is one of the treasures of the genus.

Allium sphaerocephalon is a quite unique, summer-flowering plant that prized by gardeners because of its striking floral display. The tall stems are good at adding colour and movement to the garden, they provide light vertical accents when drifted through borders.

Ammi visnaga 'Green Mist' is a new variety of Queen Annes Lace, with larger, darker green and more mounded umbels than its cousin Ammi majus. It flowers from June to September the blooms are initially flattened and lime green, turning white. The textured flower heads are a flower arrangers dream.