With an astonishing resemblance to a tropical orchid, this rarely seen plant in the Ginger family makes a beautiful and intriguing addition to any suitable garden, whilst in cooler climes it can make an impressive container exhibit indoors. A native of Indonesia and Malaysia, it is also cultivated for medicinal purposes, as an oil is obtained from the dried rhizome, and it is reputed to have many medicinal properties. In Arunachal Pradesh its flower buds and young flowers are eaten by the 'Adi' tribe and are said to be very tasty! ... Learn More

This spectacular Amaranthus displays stunning tassels of long-lasting lime green flowers from summer through to autumn, slowly fading to cream as they age. The large leaves and sturdy stems on this half-hardy annual provide a strong framework through which the long panicles of flowers will cascade to a most dramatic effect. The plant will need to be watered well in dry weather, and can be encouraged to grow to 3 or 4 feet with careful feeding and support. ... Learn More

This cheerful dwarf Amaranthus is a colourful and most unusual addition to the front of your herbaceous border, providing a splendid splash of colour with its display of dark red tassels. Especially useful where not much room if available as it has a neat and compact form and will be happy in a confined space. ... Learn More

This unusually flamboyant specimen is grown for its striking coloured foliage rather that the more familiar tassels of flowers. It provides beautiful colour contrast when planted with other foliage plants and will grow steadily taller through the summer months, enjoying full sunlight and with good heat tolerance. ... Learn More

This delightful everlasting flower is a must for the cutting garden, where its silvery white flowers with bright yellow centres on winged stems are borne throughout the summer, and will make a long-lived superb display indoors and out, and even all winter long if dried out! ... Learn More

A low-growing perennial with trailing stems bearing dark green ovate leaves, and deep blue, bowl-shaped flowers from early summer to autumn, it is very often grown as an annual. It truly is one of the most exquisite blue-flowered plants available. ... Learn More

This majestic grass, native to the Great Plains of North America, and is tolerant of a wide range of soil conditions, and will grow to between 1 and 2.5m in height depending on the moisture and soil type available. So if you need a tall imposing feature this should fit the bill! ... Learn More

This extremely handsome marginal aquatic plant can also make a lovely feature in the bog garden, forming clumps of broad green leaves that in summer produce quite large white flowers, sometime with a splash of pink. Rarely seen but easy to grow! ... Learn More

High on hot rocky hillsides on the island of Malta grow these unusual giants. When we first encountered these members of the 'umbelliferae' family, to which cow parsley, angelica, and similar plants belong, a friend remarked that compared to their relatively medium height, they had an astonishingly huge umbel (or "head") of seeds! We tried to identify them without success, and thought they resembled an angelica, so the temporary name stuck! Angelica Huge Umbel! And they also produced the most enormous seeds of any plant in this family we have ever seen, and we cultivate a very large number here. Grown here in Devon, they make impressive plants, and amusing and intriguing dried flowers too! Please let us know if you can name them......Please note they are not edible. ... Learn More

Sizeable, deepest pink "snapdragon" flowers open over a prolonged period in spring and summer on this scarce plant. It is strictly speaking a perennial, when it will ultimately make a thick-stemmed shrub clad in thin pointed leaves, but does very well grown as an annual. It grows in wild rocky places from the Rif Mountains of Morocco to Malta, where it can sometimes be seen as a dazzling patch on mountain roadsides and clifftops, but is very rarely seen in cultivation. ... Learn More

Placed botanically somewhere between the plum and the peach, these lovely fruits are the rarer red form of the normally yellow, or more-precisely apricot-coloured(!) apricot. They will grow and ripen in the most unexpected of climates, and once established, especially against a sheltered wall, they will give good quantities of sweet fruit for very many years. ... Learn More

This spectacularly spiny plant gives a continual show of wonderfully crinkled silk-petalled pure white flowers from June through to the end of August, their centres coloured a delicate yellow by the golden pollen. Individual blooms are short lived but very impressive and are continually replaced by fresh blooms. ... Learn More

Large heart-shaped leaves make a stunning backdrop for the impressive, sizeable, trumpet shaped, purple-throated, paler purple flowers that later give way to unusually attractive furry seed pods. This perennial climbing vine will do well in your conservatory or warm glasshouse, but when you have reliable warmth outside it will ornament a pergola or wall, or will look fabulous even scrambling through a tree. Very few seeds collected. ... Learn More

This interesting small climber has heart-shaped foliage and carries numerous perfumed, purplish trumpet shaped flowers for most of the summer, which are most attractive to butterflies. The plant will best show off its many flowers if the wiry stems have some form of low framework or wiry shrub to climb over. ... Learn More

Exotic, red-tongued, pale pink orchid-like flowers burst open amidst deeply-lobed leaves. One of the most beautiful flowering trees in existence, it is native to Madagascar, but naturalised widely in the southern hemisphere, where it excels in a warm climate in well-drained soil, but elsewhere also make a perfect conservatory or warm glasshouse plant. ... Learn More