Lambley Nursery Perennial Catalogue

A superb variety of shade loving groundcover. Its evergreen glossy dark purple almost black foliage makes a dense carpet in any shady spot which doesn’t parch during summer. Showy spikes of deep blue flowers on 25 cm tall stems are produced in spring.

David S. Stuart in his monograph on the genus wrote that ‘Lochinch’ was one of his favourite varieties. This hybrid popped up in the garden of the Earl of Stair at Lochinch in Wigtownshire, Scotland during the Second World War.

I remember my late father being very taken by this when he visited Australia and planted lots of it in my brother’s Monbulk garden. A frost hardy, drought tolerant evergreen shrub which from early summer until late autumn turns itself into cumulus clouds of soft grey flowers.

Caryopteris are tough drought tolerant deciduous shrubs which, happily for us, flower for a long time during late summer and autumn. ‘Lisaura’ is the best of the gold leaf forms.

A Caucasian endemic, with beautiful pinnate greyish leaves, which is widely used as an evergreen groundcover in the dry Mediterranean gardens of the French Riviera. Once established, it is happy in any soil that isn’t bog-like. A definite weed suppressor.

A dwarf ground covering, frost hardy deciduous perennial with large (for the genus) gentian blue flowers from spring until autumn. The oval green leaves turn flaming scarlet and crimson in late autumn and winter. Sun or light shade.

Needing very little water when established this plant makes a fine small specimen tree or unusual and exciting formal or informal hedge.

This is one of the best forms of Italian Pencil Pine. It is very narrow in growth and very fast growing. Plants in our new Mediterranean garden have grown 2.5 metres tall in three years and they are already making a strong architectural statement.