June

Siberian wallflowers are at their best in early to mid-May. With cheerful deep orange blooms, they are very easy to grow and combine well with other plants; indeed wallflowers demand companions and set the mind racing regarding potential planting combinations.

This old English cottage plant is making a comeback, and no wonder. The astonishing, velvety Wallflower 'Blood Red' with deep crimson-red flowers is a favourite with gardeners. They are ideal for borders and edging, they could also be used in large containers….and of course, walls!

Wallflower ‘Cloth of Gold' is a favorite with gardeners, each plant wears a cloak of the finest gold and the large golden-yellow flowers are filled with a sweet fragrance, from mid-spring and throughout summer. They are a perfect foil for daffodils and many other spring bulbs.

‘Fair Lady Mixed' is a classic tried and trusted variety. Reliably hardy, this uniform mixture blooms in a wide range of colours, both pastels and bright colours and includes the more unusual dusky-pink shades. This marvellous; fragrant, floriferous flower is extremely easy to grow and very rewarding.

Erysimum (formerly Cheiranthus) cheiri ‘Fire King' is another old and tried variety, with striking, flame-like, glowing orange-scarlet flowers. A compact variety with a bushy habit and a rich fragrance, they will supply the household with an abundance of cut flowers for many weeks.

What spring garden would be complete without a bed of delightful, sweet-scented Wallflowers, harbingers of warmer weather to come? “Ivory-White” is a fabulous, yet hard to find form. A compact variety with a bushy habit which is ideal as an underplanting to tulips and other spring bulbs.

'Tom Thumb' is a fine strain of dwarf, compact plants which feature blooms in a wide spectrum of bright colours. This jaunty late-spring flower is ideal for bedding, borders and containers.They are very easy to grow and very rewarding; they also respond beautifully to the sow and forget technique.

'Vulcan' is a very old established, dwarf variety of wallflower with sumptuous, velvety crimson flowers. Highly-scented with an extremely neat habit, they will flower for about eight weeks, the rich fragrance being most pronounced on a sunny day.

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'.

Summer Icicle adds wonderful contrast to bright summer bedding and container displays and is at home in the border where it performs well in hot and dry soils. The flowers form small white cups at the top and centre of the plant. It is top branching so ideal for use as a cut flower.

Euphorbia oblongata is one of the very loveliest euphorbias. With dazzling yellow flowers, vibrant lime green bracts and dark green, oval leaves with pale green veins. Often grown as an annual, this fabulous and attractive plant is one of the longest-flowering and most valuable of commercial cut flowers.

Felicia 'The Blues' is one of the few Felicia’s with entirely blue flowers. It is drought tolerant and very easily grown from seed. Flowering in just 8 to 10 weeks from sowing the stunning electric-blue flowers are borne above tidy, compact foliage.

Gypsophila has recently become rather trendy among celebrity and designer florists, even taking centre stage as the main flower focus of bouquets and arrangements. 'Covent Garden' produces hundreds of tiny, single white flowers on wire-thin branches, giving an airy impression.

Gypsophila paniculata 'Snowflake' is a pretty double-flowered baby’s breath that offers big airy clouds of white blooms in early summer. The flower panicles are strong-stemmed, compact and bloom a bit earlier than standard forms. Each stem has hundreds of tiny white flowers on wire-thin branches, giving an airy, soft impression.

If there's one plant that can inject a little razzle-dazzle into the border during gloomy late summers it is Helenium. From late July 'Helena' blooms with masses of vibrant blooms in a spectrum of rich colours from gold to mahogany red. Perfect for the back of the border and wonderful for cutting.

Helenium hoopesii is considered by some to be the most valuable of the species. It blooms with bright golden yellow disk florets that each form a kind of rounded knob that transforms the flower from your typical two-dimensional daisy into something much more interesting and sculptural.