5 Top Plants For different places.
Got a problem area? Here are a few suggestions. All the selections are chosen with a view to their performance in the climatic and typical soil conditions of the Northwest Highlands, hence the lack of lime-lovers and plants that need long, hot summers and cold, dry winters.
Clicking on a hyperlinked plant name will bring up a picture of that plant.
Many of these plants are available from the nursery.
Jump to our 5 suggestions for:
Late Flowering plants for Shade
Plants for Naturalising in Grass
Climbers that will tolerate Coastal Conditions
Plants for Butterflies and Bees
We have a separate page for people afflicted with rabbits with some planting suggestions.
Great plants for putting in and forgetting about, they will come up and flower before most things have even got started and be over and disappeared again by the time the main plants in the garden are doing their thing. Here are 5 easy hardy worry-free bulbs not to be without.
A simple and beautiful, only a few cms high with a white star-like flower, mix it in with blues to really set them off.
Crocus chrysanthus 'Cream Beauty’
Lovely crocus, summed up well by the name, warm cream flowers in early to mid spring.
‘Snakes-head fritillaries’ are perennially popular for the unusual and beautiful hanging bells of chequered flowers, fond of damp soils it will naturalise quite happily given a dozen plants and a few years.
The normal grape hyacinth is apt to be a bit weedy, this however is an all together more aristocratic bulb, while still being cheap-as-chips. At about 15cm twice the size of the normal the hundreds of densely packed flowers are dusky purple with a pale violet tuft on top of the spike.
A short tulip grown not just for the red flowers but the great leaves as well, grey-green with dark netting.
Here are a few bushes that will herald the arrival of spring, even if the weather doesn’t.
Camellia x williamsii ‘Donation’
Perhaps the best known cultivar with large semi-double pink flowers and lovely dark glossy green foliage. Make sure you protect the opening and open flowers from frosts.
Needle-leafed evergreen that won’t even wait for the spring to start with it main flowering starting in February with it’s unusual waxy pink flowers which it continues to produce for most of the year.
Pink and red young growth against the dark green old leaves and clusters of hanging white bell flowers.
As the name suggest an early flowering small Rhodo with white flowers that stand frosts better than most, also has furry-edged leaves.
Dwarf native willow with large round grey rough textured leaves and lovely buff male catkins in March.
When the weathers starts to decline and the nights draw in a last blaze of colours can help cheer up the garden, here are a few that are worth growing for late foliage interest.
Acer circinatum
‘Vine Maple’ Broad growing tree with excellent colour with reds and oranges that starts early and remains on the tree for a long time. Also has ‘helicopters’ that are flushed red from an early age.
‘Goose-foot Maple’. Quick growing large snake-bark maple the large leaves turn golden before falling. The younger stems are intricately veined with white.
Ericaceous shrub that will come alight with golds, ambers and reds before dropping it’s leaves. Has lovely handing cream bell flowers with red veins in late spring.
Medium-sized shrub that turns flaming red in autumn. It has unusual winged stems and orange sticky fruits.
Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’
Give a warm and sunny spot and this medium-sized shrub’s purple leaves will turn bright crimson-red in autumn.
Spring Bulbs Shrubs for Early Colour Plants for Autumn Colour Shrubs for Winter Colour
Plants for Damp Rockeries Plants for Dry Rockeries Shrubs for Dry Soils Plants for Bog Garden
Plants for Peat Bog Shrubs for Wet Soils Plants for Shade Plants for Dry Shade
Late Flowering plants for Shade Shrubs for Covering Banks Plants for Naturalising in Grass
Plants for Rocky Shore Plants for Sandy Shore Shrubs for Hedges Plants for Screening
Climbers that will tolerate Coastal Conditions Plants for Butterflies and Bees Plants for Fragrance
Just because it’s dark, wet and blowing a gale outside doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have anything worth looking at in the garden and there is more to winter interest than just witch hazel. With early and winter flowering plants it is best to avoid planting on easterly or southerly aspects as the rapid thawing by the morning sun of frozen flowers can spoil and discolour them.
Vigorous deciduous shrub grown as a coppice, being cut down every spring to encourage the whip-like dark glossy red shoots.
Suckering evergreen ericaceous shrub, though ‘evergreen’ is perhaps the wrong word as it’s leaves are forever changing with the season, going deep red in winter.
Thick smooth elliptic leaves with a reddish edge and terminal racemes of powerfully fragrant white flowers from mid winter to spring.
Well known, highly fragrant winter flowering shrub, dense clusters of small tubular soft pink flowers. Has an upright habit and good autumn colour.
Dark green evergreen leaves show up dense heads of lightly fragranced small white flowers from late autumn to mid winter.
Many people want a rockery of some kind, that little corner of the Alps to call their own. Many haven’t the room for great avenues of trees and big shrubberies or simply prefer things on a smaller scale. The majority of true alpines, i.e. those that originate high up on the mountains, require excellent drainage, there are however plenty of plants which while preferring the damp conditions that many have, still never grow big and can therefore be accommodated in a damp rock garden.
Dense vigorous evergreen mat with leaves about 100th the size of it’s better known cousin G. manicata.
Leptinella squalida ‘Platt’s Black’
Great ground cover plant, completely flat to the ground it will creep to form a dense mat of filigree leaves sea green at the tips with purple-black centres
Growing to about 10cm tall and smothered by large vivid red flowers this wee perennial adds quite an impact to your rockery
Dense creeping plant that produces masses of lilac-blue flowers all summer long
A plant of the exposed shores of the Pacific Northwest of the US and Canada, it makes a tight little mound of fleshy scalloped leaves and has loads of white flowers in late spring.
Though many alpines like good drainage, few like to get too dry as well, here are a few real toughies
A cascade of hundreds of quite large white flowers from late spring well into summer, great for going over the top of walls.
Armeria juniperifolia ‘Bevan’s Variety’
A very tight hummock of sea green foliage which sends up tons of short stems with tight clusters of pinkish-blue flowers in late spring and early summer.
Geranium (Cinereum Group) 'Ballerina'
Real good value plant, it forms a rosette from which it produces innumerable purple-pink flowers with deep red veins from spring right through to autumn.
Available in a neon rainbow of colours these semi-succulent rosette forming plants are quite amazing when a few different coloured forms are mixed together.
Sedum spathulifolium 'Cape Blanco'
Tight mat of grey-white rosettes of succulent leaves and yellow flowers in mid summer.
Spring Bulbs Shrubs for Early Colour Plants for Autumn Colour Shrubs for Winter Colour
Plants for Damp Rockeries Plants for Dry Rockeries Shrubs for Dry Soils Plants for Bog Garden
Plants for Peat Bog Shrubs for Wet Soils Plants for Shade Plants for Dry Shade
Late Flowering plants for Shade Shrubs for Covering Banks Plants for Naturalising in Grass
Plants for Rocky Shore Plants for Sandy Shore Shrubs for Hedges Plants for Screening
Climbers that will tolerate Coastal Conditions Plants for Butterflies and Bees Plants for Fragrance
Got a dusty bank that things just crisp-up on, well here are some drought-proof suggestions.
Cistus x pulverulentus 'Sunset'
Any Cistus will thrive in sunny, drier conditions, this is a very fine variety with an bushy habit, sage green narrow evergreen leaves and masses of magenta flowers all summer.
Distinctive upright stiff broom with deep ruby-red pea flowers. Prune brooms back about a third after flowering to improve habit, encourage flowering next year & prolong life (the plant’s not yours).
Euphorbia characias ssp. wulfenii
Grey-green foliage around upright stems which are topped by large heads of lime green bracts all summer.
Small spiny shrub ‘Spanish gorse’ has masses of dense terminal clusters of soft yellow flowers.
Small pale green evergreen leaves white the reverse on upright white stems, tough shrub easy and quick.
A soggy corner can be transformed into a luxuriant jungle with a multitude of colours and forms.
Stems with several whorls of flowers in many different colours from the mid May with the earliest, June and into July with the latter varieties. When used in large numbers and with a good selection of colours they are most impressive.
Astilbe chinensis var. taquetii
A popular variety it holds itself well, about 3½’ high with bold cut foliage and dense fluffy rich pink erect plumes of flowers on stiff stems in July & August.
Popular irises for wet areas they are available in a wide variety of colours including blue, purple, pink, rosy purple and white. The flowers are often beautifully and intricately marked and veined, they are borne in early summer and most are around 3-4’ high.
Large perennial that has bold round leaves dark on top and rich purple beneath and on the stems. Bares several golden orange daisies on stout stems in mid to late summer.
The ‘Bistort’ is a great and easy plant for any soggy spot, adaptable to aspect and soil type it reliably produces several stiff dumpy spikes of clear pink flowers for most of the summer.
Many people in the Highland have a house stuck on a bleak hillside and much of their ‘Garden’ is unimproved peat bog. There are quite a few ornamental plants that will grow well in these conditions.
A most beautiful iris relative from bleak moorlands of Tasmania. Dark green foliage and stems with clusters of 3 white flowers with lovely purple and yellow markings in June.
Gaultheria mucronata ‘Bell’s Seedling’
‘Pernettya’ is a vigorous suckering shrub from Tierra del Fuego and thrives on exposed peat bogs. With dark glossy evergreen leaves with a sharp tip (mucro), this form is a hermaphrodite so will produce both the clusters of small white bell flowers and then the bright pink round berries that birds love.
Exceedingly tough customer from the isolated Chatham Islands 550 miles east of New Zealand in the wild southern Pacific. It is a medium-sized shrub which has lovely glossy leathery grey-green leaves that are felted white beneath and unlike most Olearias it has big magenta and lilac daisy flowers. It loves being in wet peaty soils
A Tasmanian evergreen shrub with greyish foliage and tight petal-less white daisies from purple-red buds, it thrives across a wide range of conditions and looks really good when grown in the hard conditions of a highland peat bog.
Unusual ‘Pitcher Plant’ from the North Eastern States and Eastern Canada they thrive in really poor, acid peat bogs, gorging themselves on all the midges!
Spring Bulbs Shrubs for Early Colour Plants for Autumn Colour Shrubs for Winter Colour
Plants for Damp Rockeries Plants for Dry Rockeries Shrubs for Dry Soils Plants for Bog Garden
Plants for Peat Bog Shrubs for Wet Soils Plants for Shade Plants for Dry Shade
Late Flowering plants for Shade Shrubs for Covering Banks Plants for Naturalising in Grass
Plants for Rocky Shore Plants for Sandy Shore Shrubs for Hedges Plants for Screening
Climbers that will tolerate Coastal Conditions Plants for Butterflies and Bees Plants for Fragrance
As most people know there are no shortage of perennials for wet places, Gunnera, Filipendula, Lysichiton, Caltha, Primula, etc. But what about something a bit more substantial and permanent, like a descent sized shrub, here are 5 suggestions.
The ‘Manuka’ or ‘tea tree’ of New Zealand and Tasmania loves soggy, horrible site where little else wants to grow, the redder flowered varieties are rather too tender for wet sites, but the vigorous white Tasmanian form or some of the hardier pink forms from NZ, like ‘Chapmanii’ and dwarf ‘Elizabeth Jane’ are fine.
Australian shrub that looks like it should live in sunny dry places (it seems to do alright in them too!) but really lives in wet ditches. Upright growing with aromatic green scale-like leaves, smelling similar to southernwood, and as the name suggests, millions of small white flowers all over in early summer.
Another Australian Olearia, also loving the damp. This one has vigorous upright stems to about 4’6”, vivid green with soft needle-like foliage all the way up and then each of the many shoots is topped by a cluster of white daisies all summer.
The closely related O. leptophyllus made an appearance in the “Shrubs for Dry Soils” section and this one would be equally at home in either. Small, dense glossy green foliage on upright stems, each topped by a cluster of red buds opening to white petal-less daisies. Makes a dome about 4’ high and slightly wider.
‘Black Leaved Elder’ Large deciduous native shrub. Striking deepest purple foliage with white flowers stained dark towards their middles and autumn these are followed by black edible fruits, great in an apple pie.
What can you plant under that tree at the bottom of the garden? If it isn’t too dry here are a few suggestions
Distinctive lily relative from the damp Southern Beech forests of the South Island of New Zealand, it makes large evergreen clumps of broad sword-shaped leaves, greenish in colour with red stripes. The sweetly scented small flowers are followed by red fruits that stay on the plant for a year.
Easy perennial with finely cut foliage and rich crimson ‘Dutchman’s breeches’ flowers for most of summer.
Saxifraga x urbium ‘Variegatum’
The less vigorous variegated form of the well known ‘London Pride’. Tough and attractive with dark green and cream evergreen foliage and wands of small white flowers.
The ever popular and much desired ‘Himalayan Blue Poppy’
A tough evergreen rosette of bronzy-green sword-shaped leaves with a prominent pale mid-rib. White flowers and orange seed heads that persist for up to two years.
Often regarded as the most problematic of problem corners, just what can you grow in dry shade? Here are 5 that will enliven that dead space under those trees.
Epimedium grandiflorum ‘Rose Queen’
Great short evergreen perennial, in early spring it gives you beautifully sculpted flowers of deep pink followed by young leaves flushed with purple through the veins.
An excellent semi-evergreen cranesbill, made more useful by it’s fondness for austere conditions. Glossy mid green foliage and lilac flowers with dark veins all summer.
A vigorous native evergreen groundcover the ‘Wood rush’ thrives in deep dark and even very dry shade, there are several fine selections including ‘Taggart’s Cream’ which has bright cream young growth in spring contrasting with the dark green of the previous years, ‘Aurea’ which turns golden yellow in spring and ‘Marginata’ in which the margins of the leaves are picked out by a narrow white strip.
‘Bowles’ Golden Grass’ or ‘Golden Wood Millet’ is perhaps the most often recommended plant for dry shade, and with good reason, it brightens up a dark corner from spring to early autumn with it’s bright yellow foliage, it self seeds true and is un-fussy enough to grow in damp full sun too.
Unlike the better known ‘Lambs Lugs’, S. byzantina this plant doesn’t need a dry sunny spot and is quite at home in a sun-less dry area. It is a medium-sized herbaceous perennial with rough dark green leaves and flower spikes of rosy-mauve flowers in early summer.
Spring Bulbs Shrubs for Early Colour Plants for Autumn Colour Shrubs for Winter Colour
Plants for Damp Rockeries Plants for Dry Rockeries Shrubs for Dry Soils Plants for Bog Garden
Plants for Peat Bog Shrubs for Wet Soils Plants for Shade Plants for Dry Shade
Late Flowering plants for Shade Shrubs for Covering Banks Plants for Naturalising in Grass
Plants for Rocky Shore Plants for Sandy Shore Shrubs for Hedges Plants for Screening
Climbers that will tolerate Coastal Conditions Plants for Butterflies and Bees Plants for Fragrance
Late Flowering plants for Shade
The majority of woodland plants that have found their way into our gardens are vernals, that is they flower in spring, as or before the leaves come on the trees. So the shady border can rather dreary come mid summer, here are a few to brighten it up through into autumn.
‘Beer’s breeches’ is an architectural perennial with bold clumps of jagged-looking foliage and tall spikes of showy purple and white bracted flowers from mid summer to early autumn.
Aconitum carmichaelii Wilsonii Group
Tall and striking perennial with glossy dark green leaves and a delphinium-like flower spike of many deepest violet-blue flowers in late summer and early autumn.
The ‘willow gentian’ is a most beautiful plant with it’s arching leafy stems studded down their length with pairs of deep gentian-blue flowers in late summer. There is also a white flowered form.
The plant that no list of late flowering woodlanders could be without! A lovely perennial, about 3’ high with large sycamore-shaped leaves on upright stems, which from mid August to late September have many quite large cupped primrose yellow flowers towards the top.
The strange and beautiful ‘toad lilies’ are a must, this species is an upright perennial, about 3’-4’ with many pinky-purple flowers spotted all over with crimson purple with a unusual column structure coming from the centre.
An awful lot of houses in the highlands are built on or into hillsides, and as such many people have steep, often exposed banks that they want to cover before everything washes away. A bank can be given a green covering in two basic ways, with creeping, stem rooting plants, like a bramble does or by using fairly tight groupings of shrubs whose roots will net together to stabilise the soil. The first will give a fairly smooth finish, the second, a more ‘organic’ look and will allow for more variation. Here’s 5 good bank dressers to save you having to combine strimming with abseiling.
Felted grey evergreen leaves and masses of yellow daisies in summer make this a popular garden shrub, but it is also a tough and useful plant for populating a dry and windy bank.
Ceanothus thyrsiflorus var. repens
For a dry sunny bank this creeping evergreen shrub is a great choice with loads of mid flowers in late spring and early summer, very similar but with paler flowers is C. griseus var. horizontalis ‘Yankee Point’.
Tough, vigorous, flat growing, evergreen, with white flowers and orange-red berries.
Planted in groups this dense knotty evergreen shrub with white flowers will soon make an near impenetrable mass.
Rubus ‘Betty Ashburner’
A hairy stemmed bramble with heavily textured evergreen leaves and white blackberry-like flowers in summer. Quick and adaptable it is not vicious like it’s native cousin.
Plants for Naturalising in Grass
Many of us have that wild bit of the garden that we don’t want to mow, and we would love it if there were just a few more wild flowers in it, and wish it was just a bit more jolly. Here’s 5 to put in there and forget about.
Camassia leichtlinii ssp. suksdorfii Caerulea Group
A long name of a simply beautiful early summer bulb. A tall stem bares a spike of large slender star-shaped flowers of a lovely blue. The large bulbs should be planted to about 3 time their depth.
Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora Late Yellow
Our most popular variety, it is 2’ high with clear yellow flowers form mid August to mid September and will thrive in even the most neglected area, wet or dry underfoot.
Lovely perennial flowering in mid summer with slender erect wands of pink tinted white flowers with a deep pink marking in the centre of each petal.
Tall ‘meadow cranesbill’ which has unusual flowers splashed blue and white at random on the petals, flowering for most of the summer. Sometimes sold under the name ‘Splish Splash’.
Imposing plant, rather like a perennial yellow sunflower, it will happily out-grow any grass, needs no tending and is completely ignored by all grazers, and grows happily here to within a few feet of the sea.
Spring Bulbs Shrubs for Early Colour Plants for Autumn Colour Shrubs for Winter Colour
Plants for Damp Rockeries Plants for Dry Rockeries Shrubs for Dry Soils Plants for Bog Garden
Plants for Peat Bog Shrubs for Wet Soils Plants for Shade Plants for Dry Shade
Late Flowering plants for Shade Shrubs for Covering Banks Plants for Naturalising in Grass
Plants for Rocky Shore Plants for Sandy Shore Shrubs for Hedges Plants for Screening
Climbers that will tolerate Coastal Conditions Plants for Butterflies and Bees Plants for Fragrance
Some people live right on the shore, this does not of course prevent them from having lovely gardens and here are a few plants that can be used right near the high tide mark on stony ground.
Slow growing and not particularly easy it is none the less a most beautiful evergreen shrub. The ‘Marlborough rock daisy’ is an Olearia relative that grows in the wild on cliffs hanging over the pacific it has smooth rounded leaves grey-green above and white beneath. It has corky black older stems an large white daisies with yellow eyes.
‘Sea kale’ is native to the single beaches of the East and South Coasts of England . It has large stiff and fleshy silver-blue foliage. A fine ornamental that also tastes good.
The ‘Chatham Island forget-me-not’ is a large fleshy perennial with big heads of unusual blue and white flowers in late spring and early summer. In the wild it grows at the base of cliffs in shingle and crushed shells at the high tide mark with regular mulching of bull kelp.
This great and very tough rockery plant comes from the sea cliffs of the Pacific coast of California and Oregon. It has spoon-shaped green leaves in tight rosettes and masses mauve-magenta daisies with yellow eyes all summer.
A native to maritime cliffs and mountains in Scotland, ‘rose root’, formerly Sedum roseum, derives it’s common name from the rose-scent of the thick rhizome when scratched. It is a small deciduous perennial with glaucous leaves and pinky flower heads in mid summer.
Even living on a beech or on stabilised sand dunes there are still many lovely plants that you can grow.
Anthemis punctata var. cupaniana
Silver ferny-leafed aromatic creeping sub-shrub with masses of large white and yellow ox-eye daisies all summer. Very tough and very easy plant.
An Australian dune coloniser, this creeping succulent has thick fleshy green leaves and magenta-pink Livingstone daisy flowers followed by reddish fruits that taste like figs, though are usually rather salty due to there proximity to the sea.
Euphorbia cyparissias ‘Fens Ruby’
Quick spreading sort deciduous glaucous perennial. Comes up ruby tinted in the spring, slowly fading to grey-green by mid summer. Masses of lime green flowers from early to mid summer then the plant goes golden before dieing down in the autumn.
Geranium sanguineum var. striatum
The ‘Lancastrian bloody cranesbill’ forms a dense matt of dark green leaves with thousands of large pale pink flowers with crimson veins from late spring to late summer.
The ‘tree lupine’ makes a broad shrub, usually about 3’6” high when growing in sand with silvery hairs on the many small pale green leaves and masses of short spikes of flowers which are typically a soft yellow but forms with blue, white and mauve flowers exist.
A hedge is usually for keeping things out, the more things the better, the commonest being; wind, livestock, short-cut takers and neighbours prying eyes. These 5 will give you a quick, dense hedge in poor soil in an exposed coastal situation.
Escallonia rubra ‘Crimson Spire’
Popular Chilean evergreen with dark glossy foliage and dark pink flowers in summer, very quick growing.
Evergreen with brilliant white backed pale green leaves and a dense fairly upright growth making it an excellent and wind resistant hedge
Ideal for larger coastal hedges, very quick growing with fairly large grey-green leaves with wavy blunt-toothed edges and masses of fragrant white daisies in June. It is exceedingly tolerant of salt winds.
Not the most conventional choice, but when densely planted the ‘New Zealand flax’ will make an excellent barrier, it is both very tough and adaptable, needs minimal maintenance and after a few years, utterly impregnable. On the bottom of South Island it is used as hedges between fields on red deer farms.
A good choice for those who really want to keep the neighbours out! ‘Double-flowered gorse’ does exactly what it says on the tin, a very spiny evergreen with masses of coconut-scented double yellow flowers in spring, Prune after flowering to make a neat tight hedge. It’s double flowers are sterile so it won’t self-seed.
Spring Bulbs Shrubs for Early Colour Plants for Autumn Colour Shrubs for Winter Colour
Plants for Damp Rockeries Plants for Dry Rockeries Shrubs for Dry Soils Plants for Bog Garden
Plants for Peat Bog Shrubs for Wet Soils Plants for Shade Plants for Dry Shade
Late Flowering plants for Shade Shrubs for Covering Banks Plants for Naturalising in Grass
Plants for Rocky Shore Plants for Sandy Shore Shrubs for Hedges Plants for Screening
Climbers that will tolerate Coastal Conditions Plants for Butterflies and Bees Plants for Fragrance
Fed-up with looking at your neighbours ugly shed, or your own for that matter. Here are 5 quick and reliable upright growing evergreens that will hide most eyesores.
Vigorous variety with a smothering of deep blue flowers in late spring and in better years, again in late summer.
x Cupressocyparis leylandii
Rather infamous now, makes a lovely big tree if allowed, but also makes a great quick screening plant, if clipped REGULARLY.
Garrya eliptica
Grey-green rounded evergreen leaves with slightly wavy margins and grey-white backs and elegant long catkins all winter.
Griselinia littoralis ‘Brodick Gold’
A very attractive evergreen shrub with round leaves with green margins and large cream splash in the centre. Clips well and makes a dense hedge or screen.
Tough and very quick upright evergreen with pale green willow leaves on long vertical shoots. Very good in exposed situations
Climbers that will tolerate Coastal Conditions
Climbers originate in forests where they grow through trees, as such evolution has not placed much selective pressure for salt wind tolerance on them. So basically being resistant to salt is not worth the effort for a climber and it is therefore unusual for them to do well in the wind. However some defiantly perform better than others. Where possible provide them with a slightly more protected position, such as growing them through shrubs or trees, they will really thank you for it.
Vigorous deciduous petiole climber with typically blue bell shaped flowers in spring, though reddish-pink, pink and white forms are available. Finer and not as large growing as C. montana.
Very vigorous deciduous petiole climber with pink or white flowers in May, in several types the flowers are scented and in pink-flowered varieties the leaves are flushed red. Very quick to cover any wall, fence or climb up a tree, it is also grows well near the sea.
Ivy climbs by adventitious root so is self clinging and needs no tying in if on a wall, but remember that it can be destructive to mortar and should not be grown on old or un-sound walls. It is evergreen and often looks a bit of a mess after the winter but quickly sends out new growth. It is available in a multitude a variations of variegation.
Honeysuckle is vigorous, deciduous and climbs by twining stems. The sweetly scented flowers are borne all summer and come in white and greenish, or white and yellow or crimson.
Semi-evergreen scrambling climber with long stems that need tied in. Has many clusters of rich violet-blue flowers with prominent yellow stamens in the centre all summer.
Plants for Butterflies and Bees
For a plant to attract a pollinator it must be of the appropriate colour and shape (so the potential pollinator will notice and get to it) and offer (or seem to the pollinator to offer) some reward to the pollinator, such as sweet, energy-rich nectar. Though most garden plants are insect pollinated some are visited more frequently than others by bees and butterflies. Here are five that are particular popular and attractive to us humans too.
Known as ‘Butterfly Bush’ for good reason, everyone knows the sweet heady scent of these dense flowers on this large shrub in mid to late summer that butterflies find irresistible. Vigorous and easy to grow there are forms with white, pink, dark purple, ruby, violet-blue and bluish-lilac flowers. Other species such as the Chilean ‘Orange ball tree’, Buddleia globosa, the hybrid butterfly bush, B. x weyeriana and the fury evergreen blue-flowered South African Buddleia salviifolia are popular & also scented.
A tall growing variety with masses bi-colour deep pink to white flowers that Red Admirals go crazy for. Most Hebes are attractive to butterflies and bees.
‘Lavender’ is a real favourite with both bees and butterflies, flowering for a long period and thriving in dry poor soils. On the West Coast the secret to success with Lavenders is to make sure they are as dry as possible in winter so plant them in stony or sandy ground.
Valuable as a late flowering perennial not to mention that their large heads of varying shades of pink flowers are often speckled with butterflies and bees
Tall stemmed short-lived perennial with each stem topped by a dense cluster of purple flowers in late summer that butterflies find completely irresistible.
If a area of the garden has scented plants then it can add much more interest.
‘Southern wood’ is an old garden favourite for it’s greyish filigree foliage and heady, spicy smell.
Tough groundcovering type. It is quite at home in dry shade, it will grow happily in open situations too. The foliage has a lovely spicy scent, plant it on the edge of a path where it will be brushed against, there are forms with white, pink and purple flowers.
The ‘regal lily’ is well named, a king among princes, tall stems clad in fine grassy dark green leaves topped out by a several long tubular ivory flowers with a hint of green and purple down the ribs of the petals, and the delicious scent carries for a good distance.
A bushy evergreen shrub with tiny leaves and very dense twiggy habit. It is a first rate coastal hedging plant and it’s millions of small star-like flowers in September are a welcome brightener for an often dreary time of year. It is at this time when the delicious fragrance, reminiscent of sweet Crème Anglais, is most noticeable. The fragrance is more of an aura or atmosphere, as if you smell a flower directly there is little fragrance. On cold still winter days the lovely scent also seems to be in the air around the plant.
The ‘yellow azalea’ is a deciduous shrub with outstanding autumn colour it is easy to grow, adaptable, oh, and by the way it produces a knockout perfume from the yellow flower in mid to late May. Many Rhododendrons are also fragrant, particularly the tender white-flowered Maddenii types, such as R. 'Fragrantissimum'
Spring Bulbs Shrubs for Early Colour Plants for Autumn Colour Shrubs for Winter Colour
Plants for Damp Rockeries Plants for Dry Rockeries Shrubs for Dry Soils Plants for Bog Garden
Plants for Peat Bog Shrubs for Wet Soils Plants for Shade Plants for Dry Shade
Late Flowering plants for Shade Shrubs for Covering Banks Plants for Naturalising in Grass
Plants for Rocky Shore Plants for Sandy Shore Shrubs for Hedges Plants for Screening
Climbers that will tolerate Coastal Conditions Plants for Butterflies and Bees Plants for Fragrance
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