February

'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!

This beautiful highly versatile, aristocratic border plant has become very much in vogue in recent years. Oval, fleshy blue-green leaves spiral up the stem with tightly packed, sea blue bracts - and then the finale - small clusters of rich purple-blue tubular, nodding flowers which are adored by bees.

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

Actaea cordifolia comes into its own late in the season, when multiple stiff and stout stems emerge from the base of the plant. It displays impressive long racemes of chalky-white blooms that are composed of numerous, tiny individual star-like, fragrant flowers.

Actaea simplex 'Atropurpurea' is an exceptionally beautiful selection, valued for its large Astilbe-like leaves of purple black. Its dark hue makes a wonderful backdrop for colourful foliage and flowering shade plants. In late summer, long, fluffy spires in pale pinkish-white, rise above the dark foliage.

This uncommon Clematis is a graceful, vigorous and very floriferous climber. During summer and all the way through to autumn the plant is covered with golden yellow nodding lanterns. In the autumn the flowers of 'Radar Love' turn into beautiful large tufts of long silvery, silky seed heads that are just as ornamental.

Over the past few years, the new breeding of Coleus has exploded them into hundreds of wild and crazy types of colours and forms. Overwhelmingly the favourite is the Kong series for its sheer presence, each leaf is easily as big as your palm, and probably twice as large as the next biggest Coleus you can buy.

Grown for its outstanding foliage colours, the Kong series of coleus boasts extremely large leaves with irregular edges, each leaf is easily as big as your palm, and probably twice as large as the next biggest Coleus you can buy. 'Kong Red' displays a broad vein of brilliant red down the centre of each leaf.

Coleus has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity. The new breeding has taken a handful of series and exploded them into hundreds of wild and crazy types of colours and forms. Coleus 'Kong Rose' has huge leaves that are rose in the center, with a band of burgundy that flows out to chartreuse edges.

Featuring huge leaves that are coral in the centre and edged in bright green, Coleus 'Kong Salmon-Pink' is a 'Premium Shade' variety, that are great for large containers and mass plantings, performing best and showing the most intense colour in full shade, they also work well for indoor plant programs. It's hard to go wrong with this plant.

Coleus 'Kong Scarlet' has huge leaves that are dark red with veins trailing out to chartreuse edges. Coleus colours become more vibrant when they get more shade. This is very unusual behaviour, and explains why Coleus is a popular choice for under-the-tree plantings and shade-of-the-building gardens.

This wonderful Victorian type coleus ‘Black Dragon’ forms a riot of rumpled leaves in velvety purplish black leaves, each bordered by frilly edges. The ruby red centres are sometimes flecked with violet or pink. Easy to grow from seed, they will show their first colours in as little as two weeks.

The neatest Coleus to come along in quite a while, 'Chocolate Mint' offers rich cocoa coloured foliage with a mint-green scalloped edge. A 'Premium Sun' variety, they perform at their best in a position of full sun and are quite heat and drought tolerant outdoors. The leaves are very uniform, turn them over and they gleam bright mint. Scrumptious!

Coleus 'Coral Candy' features a new plant form - narrow, serrated leaves that gracefully drape down the mounded plants. The first seed raised coleus to ever win the coveted AAS Winner designation - AAS Judges noted that this beautiful variety holds its colour well, even when grown in full sun and holds up nicely in the autumn.

Coleus have been perfected, the new varieties have colours that intensify in sun, but can also thrive in shade. “Coral Sunrise” is an excellent example of the new developments, The beautiful coral pink heart-shaped leaves have neatly serrated edges, with shades of olive and intense bright green margins.

Ten years back coleus were gaudy relics from Grandmother's generation, but now coleus are back and teetering on the cutting edge. “Wizard Sunset” is one of the softer colours from the Wizard series, with heart-shaped leaves in beautiful shades of bronze - apricot. Excellent in full sun.

Dazzling gold stripes on mahogany-brown petals mark each bloom as unique on this very free-flowering, semi-double Coreopsis. Irresistible to butterflies but left alone by deer and untroubled by heat, humidity, and drought, this carefree beauty self-sows freely, going from seed to bloom in just 12 weeks.

Dazzling gold stripes on mahogany-brown petals mark each bloom as unique on this very free-flowering, semi-double Coreopsis. Irresistible to butterflies but left alone by deer and untroubled by heat, humidity, and drought, this carefree beauty self-sows freely, going from seed to bloom in just 12 weeks.

This unusual pink form of pampas grass with tall, pink-flushed, feathery plumes is a real show stopper. In midsummer spectacular plumes erupt above the foliage. The show continues into winter as the feathery plumes persist and the foliage turns golden brown when touched by frost.

Cortaderia selloana 'White Feather' - Pampas Grasses are the ultimate architectural plant, adding texture, autumn colour and winter shapes in the landscape. Relatively easy to grow, this plant flowers throughout late summer and autumn. It will provide colour and interest for many years.

What gardener with a heart and soul could resist the spring flowers of Corydalis, whose winged petals with upswept spurs suggest a flight of elfin butterflies. These woodland ephemerals are highly useful at the front of the border, with miniature bulbs such as crocus, muscari or scillas.