Slender spikes hold numerous densely massed chocolate brown tubular flowers. This distinctive, striking and lovely completely perennial plant is appropriately also called 'Chocolate Soldier'. ... Learn More

The wild foxglove, too well known to need a description, shoots up numerous spikes of large, purple tubular flowers. Seedlings will vary and inevitably include white and pale pink forms. ... Learn More

An unusual tight-spiked, white form of the purple foxglove carrying pale purple freckles within the throat. Impressive drifts can be easily established in the garden. The odd purple plant may occasionally pop up, but can be easily removed as soon as the coloured buds appear. ... Learn More

With their elegant upright habit, long spikes heavenly white, bell shaped flowers with densely speckled throats of deep maroon-purple, these make an impressive feature in the garden. The plants form rosettes of hairy lance shaped leaves in their first growing season. The second year they send up large spikes with drooping bell shaped blooms. Flowering begins in May and continues through the summer months. Digitalis are handsome and easy if watered well in dry weather, and look spectacular at the back of a border. Extremely attractive to bees. ... Learn More

The Excelsior group of foxgloves is a particularly fine strain, producing flower spikes with large trumpets in clear colours, in a range of lovely pastel shades, that look spectacular at the back of a border and are exceptionally attractive to bees. If your soil is dry and free-draining, try to incorporate plenty of organic matter into the soil before planting. RHS AGM winner ... Learn More

One of the best new foxgloves to be found in recent years. Stout, strong spires of creamy white flowers with their throats almost solidly painted in deepest burgundy. En masse it makes an unforgettable sight. ... Learn More

This impressive foxglove is amongst the tallest we have ever seen. Several long thin spires arise, clad along most of their length with large-lipped, dark-veined orange flowers. Soundly perennial and bone hardy, this plant will perform trouble-free for many years. ... Learn More

New, rare, delicious, and barely ever available in the Western World, the beige skin of this fruit contains luscious flesh which is sweet, tasty and delicious, and which is translucent white, with the shiny brown seed visible inside, looking like the pupil of an eye. As a result, they resemble the bulging eyes of the dragons often depicted in Chinese art. Closely related to lychees, they are native to China, Taiwan and South East Asia. The skin is hard and smooth, rather than softly-prickly like the common lychee, but peels off more easily than that of the lychee, rather like an egg shell! Con ... Learn More

These truly magnificent perennial South African flowers have beautiful sparkling white ray florets which are botanically florets, with dark blue centres. They are best grown over a hot bank or rock garden, and when in full bloom will certainly create a stunning show in any garden. ... Learn More

This exquisite, woody, evergreen climber from the cold temperate forests of Southern Chile has strong, woody twining stems clad in hairy, leathery, triangular leaves. Trusses of many delicately-perfumed, beautiful, intriguing, purple-throated creamy flowers, flared at the mouth, appear at each leaf axil of the previous year's growth. A very choice and long lived plant making a woody trunk in time. The scent which drifts out may be dismissed at first, but there is something intoxicating about its intensity. ... Learn More

A bulb expert describes this as 'an orange-flowered bluebell with a green base', which just about sums it up. In the wild in Portugal, the Iberian Peninsula, North West Africa and the Balearics, it prefers rocky, stony or sandy ground, but in the UK may do best in a warm, sheltered scree or rockery, or perhaps even better in a pot in an alpine house. It is also referred to as the brown bluebell! ... Learn More

This extremely sumptuous, clump-forming, evergreen perennial has sword-shaped, dark green leaves, which, in late spring and early summer, form the base for loose clusters of beautiful white flowers, delicately marked with purple and yellow on the inner petals. It occurs in heathland and forest in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania in Australia and is perfect for a large pot but is surprisingly hardy in a sheltered spot when established. Few seeds collected. ... Learn More

The "Common Teasel" needs little description. When in bloom the purple flowers are most attractive to bees and butterflies, whilst the dried stems and seed heads make long-lived and most attractive dried flowers. ... Learn More

This unusual attractive flower, often dried or used as a cut flower, has white flowers, and deeply cut leaves, whilst the common teasel has purple flowers and toothed or wavy-edged leaves. The inflorescence is an egg-shaped head subtended by long bracts, and may contain up to 1500 tiny flowers. ... Learn More

Looking a bit like the stereotype of an aliens head, the flowers of this ancient plant are only one part of its attraction. Above a ruff of green bracts sits a spiky green 'face' with white hair, and above it all, a dangerous-looking spiky hairdo! But historically, the dried flower-heads are interestingly distinct. They were used by 'Fullers' to raise the 'nap'on cloth. Whereas those of the well known Common Teasel have long, unhooked bracts, these have hundreds of tiny, stiff, downward-turned, velcro-like hooks amazingly and geometrically arranged. ... Learn More