Discovered here in 1995 and finally given the 'All America Award'. This remarkable gem bears early spring crowns of purplish, crinkled leaves which transform into sweetly aromatic golden rosettes, with tubby terminal spikes of fluffy lavender flowers. Bone hardy with frost and long-lived in a well-drained spot. ... Learn More

Stubby spikes of white flowers are held on stout stems of fragrant leaves which are magnets for bees and butterflies. This plant is very hardy in a well-drained spot and makes a fabulous sight in a dark dry corner. ... Learn More

An enormous monster for the back of the border. Massive, chunky square section stems carry nine inch spikes of creamy yellow-green flowers much loved by bees and butterflies. ... Learn More

This fragrant aniseed-perfumed perennial from the Korean mountains displays 16cm swollen spikes of blue-mauve flowers throughout summer and autumn. An astoundingly under-rated plant which will reward you with endless flowers in mid-summer! ... Learn More

This quite spectacular, long-blooming perennial opens its bouquets of fragrant, lavender pink flower spikes from midsummer through to early autumn. Flowering in as little as three months from sowing the seed and continuing for a very long period, this new variety is beautifully fragrant producing very uniform, compact plants bearing many long spikes of pretty pink-coloured flowers above aniseed-perfumed leaves. ... Learn More

Countless small fuzzy, shaving-brush flower heads open in flat clusters at the end of branching stems bearing coarse-teethed leaves. This flower is most valuable on account of its remarkably late flowering in September and October when most other flowers are long-gone. Finally the flower heads transform to black seeds with silken parachutes attached to carry them away. ... Learn More

Narrow spikes of small but numerous, fragrant, five-petalled yellow flowers appear on long stems above basal, potentilla-like leaves. Later, the unusual spiky seed heads appear. Also known as hairy agrimony, this unusual plant is distributed primarily over the Korean Peninsula, Japan, China, Siberia, and Eastern Europe. ... Learn More

Large purple-red flowers on tall branching stems adorn this ancient cottage garden plant which was once a welcome sight in cornfields, but is now very rare in the wild. Allow it to naturalise in your garden for a never-ending display year after year. ... Learn More

This rare subtropical tree is rather like Albizia julibrissin but bigger, and has fine, ferny, divided foliage and huge, fluffy, pink flowers which form in late summer and early autumn. The flowers, which have a beautiful sweet pea-like perfume, are followed by flat seed pods. Known by a wide variety of common names, such as Persian silk tree or pink siris, the species is usually called "silk tree" or "mimosa" in the United States. Its leaves slowly close during the night and during periods of rain, the leaflets bowing downward as if the tree were sleeping. It is native to Colombia, El Salvador, Peru and Panama but is also cultivated in Indonesia. ... Learn More

In April, spires of sweetly scented, nodding yellow flowers open on strong un-branched stalks, above succulent leaves. These plants grow best in full sun, and in summer prefer dry conditions as it is a winter grower. They are hermaphrodite, having both male and female organs, often being pollinated by insects and do not in fact come from Canada as suggested by their name, but from South Africa. ... Learn More

This exquisite South African bulbous plant has strap shaped basal foliage and racemes of white goblet-like flowers, the tepals of which are striped green and the inner tepals tipped yellow. It is found on the edges of rock sheets, gravel and silt patches and rock grassland up to 2800 meters in the Eastern Mountain Region of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. ... Learn More

In early spring, nodding flowers that are yellow with green keels, open on tallish stem surrounded by slender stiff leaves that are not clasping below. In the wild it grows on sandy and calcareous flats in the western and southern Cape of Good Hope. These plants are closely allied to Ornithogalum. ... Learn More

Large, pleasantly-scented yellow flowers open in early in summer, the perfume being especially overwhelming at night time. The petals have attractive green stripes down their centres and open in flat-topped racemes on long, pale-green stalks that stand erect. This lovely South African native plant is easy to grow and should be hardy, as it is found in the Cape area at Witteberg growing at altitudes up to 2200m. It makes a superb warm-garden plant and is equally happy in a pot. ... Learn More

This lovely bulbous plant bears bright yellow, green striped, almond-perfumed flowers, rather like tiny daffodils, all summer long. When stroked, the fleshy, needle-like leaves, exude a sweet scent. These plants from the Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa can easily flower the first year from seed. ... Learn More

This is the sensible alternative to ordinary hollyhocks if you have rust problems. The vigorous multi-branching stems are generously laden with typical hollyhock flowers in all colours from white to crimson, but they carry rounded fig-shaped leaves which are very rust-resistant indeed. ... Learn More