A distinctive Japanese sedge with arching green leaves. Carex oshimensis 'Evergreen' is beautiful in a pot as well as making a dense groundcover. It will grow in a difficult courtyard and small city garden if well irrigated. Read more about Carex oshimensis ‘Evergreen’
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. Read more about Ceratostigma plumbaginoides
Genuinely rare and difficult to obtain in this country, this tough, frost hardy and drought tolerant new form of Tibetan Plumbago has pure white flowers on a tidier bush. Read more about Ceratostigma willmotiana ‘Alba’
Famously the leaves of this plant are the source of Labdanum Essential Oil which has a warm sweet, musky, amber scent. Large white flowers with purple brush strokes at the centre are produced on an evergreen shrub well clothed in dark green sticky leaves. Read more about Cistus ladanifer
I was one of the first Australians to see a blue Corydalis when I visited the Edinburg Botanica gardens 40 years ago. Corydalis reflexa was so rare that the gardens had it under lock and key in a no go area in the gardens. Read more about Corydalis ‘Blue Line’
One of glories of the garden when it opens its 8cm across, bowl-like, soft lavender-blue flowers during spring and early summer. Read more about Corynabutilon vitifolium
This upright conifer makes an excellent evergreen specimen tree as well as a useful untrimmed wind break or timber tree. C. torulosa is resistant to cypress canker. Read more about Cupressus torulosa
One of the showiest of all spring flowering shrubs the Warminster Broom was given the coveted RHS Award of Garden Merit as long ago as 1933. It first cropped up in an English garden in 1867. Read more about Cytisus x praecox ‘Warminster’
