Slug resistant

If you have the space in your garden this is one plant to choose. Acanthus are robust perennials with handsome, lobed foliage. In late summer, tall racemes of white flowers with dusky purple bracts appear. Used as a motif in architecture and art through ages, Acanthus is a true architectural beauty!

Aconitum napellus ‘Newry Blue’ is an outstanding old Irish cultivar with wonderful upright spires of the deepest rich blue that tower over the back of the border. Known for its dense spires, they are every bit as dramatic as you could hope for them to be.

Agapanthus Getty White is a sparkling plant with dense clusters of white flowers on erect stems. It is a sparkling plant and is dazzling against a dark green backdrop. They are terrific as cut flowers and are suited to both formal and modern style arrangements.

The Agapanthus or Blue African Lily is one of the aristocrats of the late summer garden. Requiring only the minimum of care, the exotic combination of graceful foliage and stunning flowers is equally impressive in the border or large planter. This is a lovely plant to grow and they are very easy from seed.

The Agapanthus is one of the aristocrats of the late summer garden. 'Peter Pan Blue' is a fine dwarf hybrid with neat clumps of leaves and large clusters of light- blue flowerheads. The exotic combination of graceful foliage and stunning flowers is equally impressive in the border or container.

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 cana 'Heather Queen' is a dynamic landscape plant and a particularly beautiful form. Dark pink tubular flowers on tall stiff stems from mid-summer until late autumn. Pollinators are drawn to its fragrance, the intense coloration and their sweet nectar.

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 ‘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.

Agastache pallidiflora produces a continual mass of lavender-rose, scented flowers from June to September. The soft, touchable flower spikes must be one of the prettiest flowers of all this pretty family. Exceptionally long-flowering, they will flower in the same year given an early sowing and can be used as an annual.

Agastache are very seductive. You start with one, and the next thing you know, you’ve got ten different plants in the flowerbed and are wondering where you can find space to sneak another one in. ‘Apache Sunset’ is one of the best and most durable - coral-peach blooms with rose and violet buds. Just gorgeous and, of course, extremely tempting.

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.

Astrantia major “Primadonna” is a splendid and most attractive cultivated variety forming bushy plants, good for ground cover, and bearing long, loosely-branched stems of very lovely flowers in various shades of wine to deep red. The papery bracts remain presentable for months, rustling in every breeze.

Pale greenish-white, pincushion-like flowers surrounded by a ruff of greenish white bracts are produced from June to October. The delicate Astrantia alba is perfect for naturalising in areas of moist, dappled shade. It works equally well in a woodland edge or in a mixed border.

Aubrieta 'Hendersonii' is a vigorous variety that is smothered by rich lilac-purple flowers for several months in spring. It grows to only 10 to 15cm tall at maturity, but with a spread of around 45cm it makes a lively edging to a sunny border, growing over rock walls or placed in stonewalls.