Achillea ‘Cerise Queen’ is a carefree and generously blooming perennial which requires little maintenance to create an explosion of late summer colour. Irresistible to butterflies they also make excellent cut flowers.
Achilleas are traditional border flowers valued for their feathery foliage and striking flat, circular heads of flowers ‘F2 Summer Berries’ is a compact variety growing to only 60cm tall at maturity. This beautiful improved mixture includes the richer tones of red, cerise and pink in addition to many pastel shades.
Originally bred by and developed in Japan, Agastache ‘Golden Jubilee’ was named to honour Queen Elizabeth II’s 50th year of rule, celebrating the Golden Jubilee in 2002. This bright gold-chartreuse beauty has one of the most remarkable leaf colour of any plant. Offering late season punctuation the flowers are a powerhouse source of nectar and pollen for bees, butterflies and other beneficial insects.
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.
Ajuga genevensis is used throughout the world yet this relatively uncommon form is less well known. This very well behaved, evergreen groundcover has deep gentian blue flower spikes and is by far the showiest of the species. It is often the plant of choice for smaller areas or along edges and pathways.
For most of the year Ajuga is a pleasant, quiet achiever, a very versatile low growing ground cover, with evergreen, rosette-like foliage that hugs the ground like an evergreen carpet but those weeks in spring when the blue flowers appear are simply quite magical.
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.
Ammi lends a delicate airiness to any border and is often used to create a cohesive flower bed. It associates well with both annuals and perennials and makes an excellent addition to wildlife gardens, luring bees and butterflies to the nectar rich flowers. Organic Seed.Anchusa ‘Dropmore’ is a 1905 selection that is still available today. They will thrive in a sunny border, are much loved by almost all bee species and make a great companion to rich plums and purple tones.
The Semi-Tall Flowers Mix is a richly flowering mixture of that produces large quantities of 50cm (20in) tall annual flowers for the border or for cutting. As well as being ornamental, they will provide nectar and pollen for bees, butterflies and other insects from early in the year to late in the season.
Composed of a finely balanced selection of annual flowers designed to provide a long succession of flowers from June to September, the Tall Flowers Mix grows 60 to 70cm (24 to 28in) tall and produces large quantities of flowers that are ideal for the border and for the vase.
Anthriscus sylvestris is most characteristic of hedgerows, road verges and woodland edges. Our native Cow Parsley has a sophisticated form, with delicate, open, white lacy umbels, that from mid-spring to early summer look as though they’re erupting from a well shaken champagne bottle!
The beautiful blue star-shaped flowers of Borage are edible with a cool cucumber flavour. Use them as garnish in fruit cups, summer drinks, wines and Pimms. Garden visitors can be converted to herbal advocates simply by offering a taste of its flower! Organic Seeds.The herb borage is a well known annual. Not so well known and not often written about is the equally beautiful form ‘alba’ which boast pure white, perfectly star-shaped flowers. Each flower is centred by five black stamens which heighten the drama. The flowers are edible, garden visitors can be converted to herbal advocates simply by offering a taste of its white flower.
Borage is one of the most reliable sources of blue flowers, often flowering lavishly for weeks after sowing. The beautiful blue star-shaped flowers are edible and very important for bees, providing pollen and nectar in prodigious amounts.
Cheerful and bright, use Calendula in beds, borders or containers. Calendula is prolific and durable, and like most hardy annuals it is easy to grow, simply sow where it is to flower. It is currently one of the top herbs used for medicinal use. Sprinkle salads and decorate cakes with the edible tangy petals.
The Boy Series, which all feature double flowered blooms on tall stems for garden or cutting, are available in many colours. These beauties grow well as border plants and are wonderful in a cutting garden. ‘Black ball’ flowers are a lovely rich dark-chocolate hue, almost black on cloudy days.
A favorite annual flower and cottage garden staple, Centaurea ‘Blue Boy’ has piercing, bright blue flowers with ruffled petals and violet-blue centres. The blooms appear from early to late summer. These beauties grow well as border plants and are wonderful in a cutting garden.
Today cornflowers are rare in the wild, they flourish instead in our gardens. They are the most splendid of annuals. Aside from their electric blue, which is breathtaking when they’re grown in dense drifts, they are easy to grow, they flower all summer, make great cut flowers and bees adore them.
Centranthus ruber is a Cottage garden favourite that’s made it into the style books. Sweetly-perfumed, dense clusters of reddish-pink flowers appear from July to October. They are ideal for attracting bees and butterflies and other pollinating insects into the garden and lovely when used as a cut flower.
Centranthus ‘Snow Cloud’ produces airy clusters of white flowers that appear from July to October on tall, fleshy stems with glaucous leaves. Very long flowering, sweetly-perfumed and easy-to-grow from seed, given an early sowing Centranthus will flower from July right through to October.
Cephalaria gigantea is a gentle giant that has an informal look that is perfect for looser planting styles. Tall but airy with very pretty pale butter-yellow flowers, use it planted at the back of the border.
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.
Introduced for the 2016 season, Cosmos bipinnatus ‘Xanthos’ is causing rather a stir in horticultural circles. Unique soft-yellow blooms are produced in profusion on compact dwarf plants.
Didiscus caerulea is known as the Blue Lace Flower for its unusual colour. The delicate lavender-blue flowers, each composed of tiny, star-shaped, sweetly fragrant flowers are perfect for the cutting garden.
Recent developments of Didiscus caerulea have broadened the colour range. Didiscus ‘Lacy Mix’ produce the same lacy umbel shaped domes and finely cut foliage. In a pastel blend of powder-blue, lavender, soft pink and white, the plants branch freely, filling borders with a light, floaty feel and masses of stems for cutting.
This lovely native European woodland plant is a beauty to add to any garden and a popular biennial for shaded places. Plants form rosettes of lance shaped leaves, the second year the rosette begins to shoot skyward with beautiful large spikes and drooping bell shaped blooms that are spotted inside.
Echium vulgare is a valuable native plant and is exotic enough to earn a place in a flower border. The plant is much loved by almost all bee species. If you don’t want plants that honeybees simply visit, but want to select plants that honeybees clearly love, choose Echium for your garden.
Hardy geraniums are undoubtedly one of the most popular groups of plants. Today’s hybrids are the modern flag bearers, they are beautiful, reliable and endlessly various produces jewel-tone, saucer-shape flowers for months at a time. Exceptionally good value this mix always contain a few real rarities.
Geranium ‘Orchid Blue’ is a simply stunning plant, producing clusters of saucer shaped flowers of a rarely seen shade of pure orchid-blue, each with purple-violet veins. This new-on-the-scene plant soon spreads to form low hummocks of deeply cut soft green, leaves.
‘Dark Reiter’, is a fairly new cultivar originating from ‘Victor Reiter’ whose namesake was the legendary California nurseryman. What sets this plant apart is the new leaves that emerge a light maroon colour then fade to a purple-flushed deep green, it produces violet-blue flowers in spring.
“Splish Splash” is a fascinating, rare and prized border plant and one of the most beautiful, striking and unusual perennial geraniums. Very easy to grow, the clumps of divided foliage are topped with mauve-blue splashes and flecks on pure white petals, each petal appearing to be individually designed and painted.
‘Vision Light Pink’ produces masses of large luminescent light pink flowers with red veins from early spring through to late summer. This long-lived, drought-tolerant perennial is useful as a small scale groundcover and in mixed borders. Use it in rock gardens, stone walls or even in container plantings.
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. Very hardy and easy to grow, all this plant needs is sunshine and well-drained soil.
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.
This heirloom morning glory originated in Bavaria in Germany and named for the original Seed-saver Baptist John Ott, Ipomoea purpurea ‘Grandpa Ott’ flowers of intense violet-blue, with a ruby red star. It is a good climber for walls, trellis work or if allowed to scramble through other plants or trees.
Knautia arvensis is an attractive native perennial herb of well drained grassland. It can be found throughout Europe in meadows, rough pasture, hedgerows and verges. Though it is by nature a perennial, it will flower and produce seed the first year if grown as an annual, either autumn or spring sown.
Knautia macedonica has been hugely fashionable for years and is likely to remain so for many more. This lovely and versatile perennial blooms from late spring to autumn with dark-crimson, richly glamorous pompoms. Established plants produce literally hundreds of blooms in one season.
Lavendula angustifolia is an excellent plant for low informal hedging and as a specimen evergreen for borders and formal gardens. Flowering generally begins from mid to late June to early July. The flowers have a rich sweet scent and are highly attractive to bees and other beneficial insects.
Munstead Lavender is a fragrant robust English lavender that, due to its short size and tightly held blooms, makes a great hedge. It flowers profusely in the spring, after which a good pruning will provide an attractive grey bush with highly aromatic leaves.
The more I see of this rather attractive little plant, the more I grow to appreciate it. Now I seem to spot it all over the place, in meadows, woodland, road verges and gardens. The bright yellow fragrant flowers can be seen in blossom from the end of April through until mid September.
Honesty is a dual purpose plant, grown partly for its fragrant purple – pink flowers in spring and summer, but also for its unique seed-heads. Oval and translucent, gleaming with an eerie silver light and coveted by flower arrangers. It is a vital nectar plant and therefore popular with bees and butterflies.
Each small flower of Band of Nobles ‘Chandelier’ is a glorious shade of golden yellow, and the standard (the upper petal) is often a shade or two lighter. They have been bred for a long flowering period and give unbeatable garden performance.
Magnificent and spectacular spikes of rose-purple flowers, which last from June throughout the summer distinguish this tall wetland plant. Purple loosestrife is an easy garden plant, thriving in any soil. It is a beautiful subject for late summer colour in a border, shrubbery, large pond or slow-moving water.
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