September

Santolina, commonly known as Lavender Cotton is a small shrub with soft, woolly, finely divided foliage, that make neat, rounded bushes. They are valuable for mass planting, ideal for knot gardens and small hedging around herb gardens etc. It will stand any amount of clipping and shaping - a perfect plant for control freaks.

This Japanese species of Burnet has infiltrated our psyche and somehow manipulated us so that we can find no fault with this most refined of perennials. Flowering in the first half of summer, the highly tactile flowers float like dainty ghosts at the tips of their slender stems.

Sanguisorba officinalis is a native of Europe and an old-world herb that is currently enjoying a resurgence in popularity thanks to the revival of interest in perennial gardens and naturalised form of planting. Perfect for natural style planting schemes, it looks right at home in a swaying sea of grasses.

The royal sister of ‘Blue Queen’, ‘Rose Queen’ is a wonderful, long-blooming cultivar with slender spires and beautiful mulberry-rose flowers, which open from dark pink buds in early and mid-summer. This tall, easy-to-grow variety with lance-shaped green leaves possess a pleasant aromatic scent.

Salvia x superba 'Blue Queen' is one of the finest Salvias we know. This plant is a spectacular source of dark, intense colour and narrow, vertical form. Masses of pencil-thin, vibrantly colourful bloom spires, so densely set that they present a solid wall of colour in the border.

Salvia verticillata 'Purple Fairy Tale' is a spectacular first year flowering perennial. The irresistible deep purple petals gather like raindrops in tiered pools to form whorled flowers. Easy to grow, it will begin to bloom just a couple of months after sowing. The plant flowers abundantly and continues right through to September

An absolute gift to flower arrangers, this is a noble and ornamental plant for the back of any border making nice clumps of foliage. It is, of course, the flowers that are remarkable: three or four inches across, “green” is one’s immediate impression on seeing them.

This attractive plant will be equally at home in the flower border or keeping company with the sage and thyme in your herb garden. Delightfully aromatic, the floral-peppermint scent is subtly different from other mints. Mountain mint is a great nectar plant, its honey is much sought after.

Collected at altitude in Japan and introduced in 2006, Polemonium yezoense 'Purple Rain' is one of the best new introductions in recent years. With bronze-purple lacy foliage, dark stems and violet-blue flowers, it is the darkest flower form of Polemonium available.

The white form of the lovely Jacobs Ladder, named after the slender, fresh green leaflets arranged like the rungs of a ladder. Blooming in late spring to early summer, the bright foliage and white flowers will brighten shady locations. Both the flowers and the attractive ferny foliage are excellent for cutting.

The physostegia has prolific dazzling tubular flower spikes which are arranged on distinctly square stems. This oddly named perennial is perfect for the middle of a mixed or herbaceous border. The flowers are on swivels that can be bent right or left on the stem - a useful feature for floral displays.

Persicaria orientalis ‘Cerise Pearls’ is a new, modern-day variety that grows to a more manageable height of 100 to 140cm . Tall enough to give the same airy effect, yet so much easier to place in the garden. From August to October the whole plant is spectacularly draped with long, dangling, velour-like cerise tassels.

Russian Sage is one of the great garden plants of all time, but if you've been frustrated by their floppy nature, this new variety will be a welcome addition. Growing to about 60 to 75cm tall, Perovskia atriplicifolia 'Taiga' is also the first Russian sage available as a first year flowering perennial.

A winner of both an AAS and Fleuroselect Awards, Penstemon ‘Twizzle Purple' is a first year flowering perennial that boasts twice the length of flowering stem. Strong, trouble-free plants produce trumpet shaped magenta-violet blooms that flutter all along tall, slender stems.

Penstemon barbatus 'Twizzle Coral' adds a graceful twist to the garden. A first year flowering perennial, that is hardy and vigorous, it boasts twice the length of flowering stems, giving longer, more elegant wands for the vase while preserving the natural elegance of Penstemon barbatus.

Awarded a Fleuroselect Medal for striking colour, plant habit, and flowering performance, Penstemon barbatus 'Twizzle Blue' is a first year flowering perennial that will add height and high-impact colour to the border, giving superb flowering performance from mid to late summer.