Palest moonlight buttermilk coloured blooms, like clouds of shimmering butterflies, produced all spring and summer. Admired greatly here where they naturalise gently along pathways. ... Learn More

This is one of the loveliest of the alpine buttercups with attractive grey-green, glaucous leaves, and short stems carrying open, golden-eyed, pure white flowers. These gems come from the Pyrenees, and the Cantabrian Mountains. ... Learn More

One of the very biggest, and most impressive of all buttercups, this easy-to-grow giant opens enormous, bright green, maple-like leaves beneath large heads of large bunches of huge, shiny yellow buttercups, each with a bright green eye! This display continues until autumn when it dies completely away into a tuber, re-emerging again in early spring. This unexpectedly hardy plant is native to all of the Canary islands and will do best in rich, rather moist soils. ... Learn More

One of our earliest spring flowers, just after the snowdrops, it can appear as early as the latter part of February where it makes carpets of golden stars on shiny green carpets of tightly-packed foliage. on the banks of streams and rivers, or else in the more shaded areas under hedgerows. A valuable addition to any garden, as the bright green shiny foliage is an astonishing annual weed suppressant. Annual seeds simply do not have light to survive until may or June, when the celandine's leaves promptly die completely away, leaving just tiny harmless tubers until the following February. Contra ... Learn More

Very rarely seen, this fabulous, dark-leaved variant of the celandine is also one of our earliest spring flowers, blooming just after the snowdrops as early as February. It makes solid carpets of superb, shiny, ebony-black, tightly-packed foliage, liberally studded with golden stars. This solid, glistening foliage is an astonishing annual weed suppressant, making a solid low carpet, stifling germinating annual seedlings which simply do not have light to survive until May or June. Then the celandine's leaves promptly die completely away, having achieved their "mulching/weed suppressing" duty. T ... Learn More

This lovely gem supplies valuable spring colour for the front of a border or rockery. Even experts are fooled by the long, sisyrinchium-like, glaucous leaves before the very long succession of butter-yellow saucers appears. It has no vices and is too seldom seen. ... Learn More

High in the alpine meadows of the European Alps lives this quite spectacular plant. Golden-eyed, ivory white saucers open in long succession on repeatedly dividing stems, giving a good season of bloom. Easy to grow in good, well-drained but moist soil, it will gently self-seed if you are fortunate! Very few fertile seeds available. ... Learn More

A rare, striking, tall and easy-to-grow plant for most gardens. Flowering all summer with profusions of showy, golden yellow flowers with a protruding brown central cone. Good for cut flowers and arranging. Perennial but best treated as an annual. ... Learn More

One of the most valuable cottage garden flowers, but sadly ignored and rarely seen, is this sweetly perfumed plant. Because it does not possess bright flowers it is often left to languish in some dark corner....The impressive spike-like inflorescence of this ancient ornamental cottage garden plant takes up most of the upper stem, and is densely packed with many deeply-fragrant yellow-eyed white flowers. The relatively insignificant leaves are divided deeply into many narrow lobes. Fill your garden with musky perfume! ... Learn More

A lovely architectural plant with waving, almost snake-like heads, of small, tufted yellow-cream flowers, the appealing rosettes of yellowish green leaves acquiring a reddish blush in cool weather. This species was the most widely used source of the natural dye known as weld, a bright yellow dye. If mixed with the blue from woad, (Isatis tinctoria), it produces greens such as Lincoln green. ... Learn More

This legendary and quite fabulous giant herbaceous plant erupts with an amazing tapering spire of bright, creamy coloured bracts which are held on strong tall stems. These extend out even further as soon as the seed ripens. The equally attractive pleated basal leaves make a low protective skirt, and are rich green and almost rounded with deep veining. It grows in the wild high on the mountains in the Himalaya, northeastern Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, India, Sikkim, Bhutan and Nepal. This is one of the world's most desirable plants and although a slow grower is worth the wait so please be ... Learn More

Superb architecturally slashed and cut leaves form an imposing structure, from which in early summer arise immense spikes of pink fluffy panicles. "Though any form of this plant is worth growing, Tanguticum should be sought." (G.S.T.) ... Learn More

This attractive annual with vibrant yellow flowers, is an extremely beneficial, indeed often essential plant for the wild flower meadow. With the upper lip having two white or purple teeth, it provides summer colour, and also papery seed pods that rattle when the seed is ripe, and in olden days this was said to show that the meadow was ready to be cut, hence its other common name of "hay rattle". ... Learn More

Rhodocoma capensis, commonly referred to as the Cape Restio, is a distinctive and ornamental perennial native to the Western Cape of South Africa. This resilient plant, a member of the Restionaceae family, showcases an architectural grace with its slender, reed-like stems that form dense clumps, reaching heights of 3 to 5 feet. The foliage consists of slender, needle-like leaves arranged alternately along the stems, contributing to its bushy and structured appearance. Come late spring to early summer, Cape Restio adorns itself with small, unassuming flowers surrounded by papery bracts, addi ... Learn More

Large, widely-expanded trumpets, either solitary or in pairs, in shades of red, pink or yellow, open on strong, stout stems, and one or two strap-shaped leaves also arise from the large underground bulb. Originally collected on the Plant World Chilean expedition of 1994, these lovely plants spend a long time under dry snow in the winter, but when they erupt in early summer it is worth the wait. ... Learn More