Search results

Hoheria sexstylosa ‘Snow White’ is an attractive, evergreen shrub or small tree of pyramidal shape, with attractive, peeling bark, and ovate, sharply toothed, glossy green leaves. Masses of beautiful and delicate, fragrant, star-shaped, white flowers, resemble cherry blossom and bloom throughout summer. Attractive to bees and butterflies. Hoheria sexstylosa ‘Snow White’ prefers fertile, neutral to alkaline, moist, well-drained soils but can adopt to any type of soil as long as it is well-drained. It thrives in full sun or partial shade. It needs to be sheltered from cold, dry winds and roots should be protected in winter with mulch. Generally, pest-free and disease-free. This beautiful evergreen shrub with lovely summer flowers is a great addition to any informal, cottage, urban or coastal garden. If heavily pruned, it can be turned into an attractive evergreen hedge and provide privacy and some wind protection. Perfect for shrub borders, wall-side borders, hedges and screens.

Wisteria floribunda ‘Black Dragon’, also known as ‘Kokuryu’, is a striking and dramatic Japanese wisteria cultivar prized for its unusually dark, richly coloured blooms. Its flowers emerge in long, cascading racemes that can reach impressive lengths, often around 30–50 cm, creating a waterfall effect in late spring to early summer. The blossoms themselves are deep violet to purple-black, giving the plant its evocative name. Each flower has a velvety texture and a subtle, sweet fragrance that enhances its luxurious, almost mysterious presence in the garden.

As the plant matures, its twining stems develop a graceful, sculptural quality, weaving around pergolas, arches, and sturdy supports. The foliage is fresh green, pinnate, and lightly textured, providing a beautiful contrast to the dark flower clusters. In summer, the leaves create a soft, ornamental canopy, and in autumn they turn a gentle yellow before falling.

‘Black Dragon’ is an ideal choice for gardeners seeking a wisteria variety with depth, drama, and exceptional ornamental appeal. With proper pruning and training, it becomes a breathtaking focal point, offering a spectacular display that feels both elegant and enchantingly exotic in any landscape.

Hosta Great Expectations is an excellent choice for shade gardens, offering striking foliage and a bold presence. Its large, variegated leaves—with creamy-white centers edged in blue-green and chartreuse—add dramatic contrast and texture to garden beds, borders, and woodland settings.

This hosta thrives in partial to full shade and prefers rich, moist, well-drained soil. It is relatively slow-growing but becomes a stunning focal point once established. The plant is ideal for gardeners seeking low-maintenance yet impactful perennials. Its tall flower spikes with pale lavender blooms appear in midsummer, attracting pollinators such as bees and butterflies.

Great Expectations pairs beautifully with ferns, astilbes, and other shade-loving companions. Its bold leaves also help suppress weeds and retain soil moisture. Overall, this hosta is perfect for adding elegance, texture, and year-round interest to shaded garden areas.

Wisteria × valderi ‘Eranthema’ is an elegant and distinctive deciduous climber, valued for its refined flowers, gentle fragrance, and manageable habit. A hybrid between Wisteria floribunda and Wisteria sinensis, it combines the best qualities of both parents, offering reliable flowering with a slightly less vigorous growth rate than many traditional wisterias.

In spring, soft green, pinnate leaves emerge, typically made up of 11–15 oval leaflets. The foliage unfurls alongside the flowers, creating a balanced and attractive display rather than leaving the blooms exposed on bare stems. As the season progresses, the leaves deepen in colour and form a dense canopy that provides shade and interest through the summer months.

Flowering usually takes place in late spring, most often in May in the UK. The flowers are borne in medium-length, pendulous racemes, generally around 20–30 cm long. Each pea-like bloom is a rich violet to blue-purple, often highlighted with a pale yellow or creamy marking at the centre. The flowers are sweetly scented, though more delicately perfumed than some other cultivars, making them particularly pleasant in sheltered garden settings.

‘Eranthema’ is a twining climber that can reach approximately 7–9 metres in height when mature. It twines clockwise and requires strong, permanent support such as a pergola, arbour, or substantial wall framework. Regular pruning in summer and winter helps to control its size and encourages the formation of flowering spurs.

This cultivar thrives in full sun, where flowering is most abundant, but it will tolerate light shade. It prefers fertile, well-drained soil and benefits from a sheltered position. Fully hardy across most of the UK, Wisteria × valderi ‘Eranthema’ is an excellent choice for gardeners seeking a classic wisteria with dependable performance, elegant flowers, and a slightly more restrained habit.

Osmanthus is a genus of flowering plants in the family Oleaceae, commonly known as sweet olive or tea olive. It consists of about 30 species of evergreen shrubs and small trees, native to Asia and the Americas. The plant is well-known for its fragrant, small flowers that bloom in clusters, usually in the fall or early winter. The flowers come in various colors including white, yellow, orange, and reddish-orange, and are often used in perfumes, teas, and desserts due to their sweet scent.

Osmanthus plants are very popular in landscaping and gardening because of their versatile uses. They can be grown as hedges, screens, or as accent plants in mixed borders. They are also suitable for container gardening, bonsai, and indoor cultivation.

Osmanthus plants prefer well-drained soils and partial shade to full sun exposure. In traditional Chinese medicine, osmanthus has been used to treat various health issues such as coughing, sore throat, and digestive problems. The plant contains various active compounds including essential oils, flavonoids, and phenolics that have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

Dryopteris affinis 'The King', is a handsome and distinctive evergreen fern valued for its strong structure and attractively crested fronds. It belongs to the golden male fern group and is particularly appreciated for the decorative tips that give the plant an elegant yet slightly unusual appearance.

This fern forms a substantial clump of arching fronds that emerge from a central crown. Each frond is a rich, glossy green and can reach around 60–120 cm in length, creating a bold, architectural presence in shaded areas of the garden. The defining feature of this cultivar lies in the crested ends of the fronds and pinnae, where the leaflets divide into small tufted or tasselled tips. These crests give the plant a softly ruffled outline and add a layer of visual interest compared with standard forms of the species.

As an evergreen fern, it provides year-round structure and foliage in suitable conditions. Fresh new fronds unfurl in spring, often appearing slightly lighter green before deepening in colour as they mature. Older fronds can remain attractive through winter, though some gardeners choose to remove any tired foliage in early spring to allow the new growth to be seen clearly.

Dryopteris affinis ‘Cristata’ thrives in partial to full shade and prefers moist, humus-rich, well-drained soil. It is particularly well suited to woodland gardens, shaded borders, or naturalistic planting schemes where its bold texture contrasts beautifully with finer foliage plants. It combines well with hostas, hellebores and other shade-loving perennials, helping to create layered planting with varied forms and textures.

This fern is generally hardy and reliable in the UK climate, requiring little maintenance once established. Its robust habit, evergreen character and distinctive crested fronds make it a valuable structural plant for shaded garden spaces.

Overall, Dryopteris affinis ‘Cristata’ is admired for its durability, ornamental foliage and ability to bring year-round interest and texture to sheltered, shady areas of the garden

Phormium 'Rainbow Queen' is a vibrant, evergreen perennial that brings bold color and architectural elegance to gardens year-round. Its long, arching, sword-like leaves feature striking bands of bronze, pink, green, and red, making it a standout focal point in borders, gravel gardens, or containers. Reaching around 1.5 to 2 meters in height, it works well as a statement plant or as part of a mixed planting scheme.

This variety thrives in full sun to partial shade and prefers well-drained soil. It is drought-tolerant once established and handles coastal conditions well, including wind and salt spray. ‘Rainbow Queen’ adds a tropical flair to both contemporary and traditional garden designs, offering low-maintenance beauty with minimal pruning required.

In colder regions, some winter protection may be necessary. Overall, it’s an ideal choice for gardeners seeking color, texture, and year-round impact with little effort.

Catalpa biganoides ‘Purpurea’ is a fast-growing, medium-sized deciduous tree with a wide-spreading growth habit and large, heart-shaped leaves, glossy purple when young, dark-green and purple as they mature. Trumpet-shaped, creamy white flowers marked with yellow and purple brown, grow in upright clusters throughout spring and summer, and are followed by long, bean-shaped fruit. Hence the name Indian Bean Tree. Catalpa biganoides ‘Purpurea’ will tolerate any kind of soil as long as it is well-drained, but prefers fertile, moist soils in full sun. It needs to be sheltered from hard winds and protected from spring frosts when young. Generally, pest-free and disease-free. Very resilient, easy to grow and low maintenance. Catalpa biganoides ‘Purpurea’ is a hybrid between Catalpa bignonioides and C. ovata that originated in France more than 100 years ago. It is an attractive shade tree, great for cottage and informal gardens, parks and streets.

Hosta Francee is an attractive, fast-growing, clump-forming, deciduous perennial of dense, arching, mounding habit and broad, heart-shaped, strongly-veined, dark green leaves with white margins. The funnel-shaped, white to pale lavender flowers emerge on long flower scapes above the foliage in mid-summer. Hosta Francee grows best in organically rich, moist, well-drained soils in partial to full shade. It likes some morning sun and consistent moisture.

Once established, it can withstand dry shade. It needs to be sheltered from cold, dry winds. Low maintenance plant. Slugs and snails may damage the foliage. Toxic to dogs, cats, and horses. Hosta Francee is a beautiful, ornamental, low maintenance plant, perfect for shade gardens, especially good-looking in groups or massed. Great as a background plant, a groundcover, for mixed beds and borders, under the shrubs and roses, or for growing in containers. Suitable for informal, cottage, woodland, and urban gardens.

Hosta ‘Waterslide’ is a vigorous, eye-catching perennial valued for its broad, heart-shaped blue-green leaves with a strong, heavily corrugated texture. The foliage has a slightly waxy bloom when young, giving it a cool, glaucous tone that works beautifully in shaded planting schemes. As the season progresses, the leaves retain their colour well, creating a bold, calming presence in the garden.

This cultivar is best suited to partial or dappled shade, where it can develop its rich foliage without the risk of scorching. It performs particularly well in moisture-retentive, humus-rich soils that stay consistently damp but are well-drained. Once established, it forms a substantial clump, making it ideal for filling larger shaded borders, woodland gardens, or planting beneath shrubs and trees.

Hosta ‘Waterslide’ also works well as a feature plant in containers, especially in sheltered courtyards or shaded patios. Its strong leaf structure gives it good resistance to slug damage compared to thinner-leaved varieties, although some protection may still be needed in wet conditions.

In summer, pale lavender flowers rise above the foliage on tall stems, attracting bees and adding vertical interest. Overall, it is a reliable, architectural hosta that brings texture, depth, and a lush woodland feel to shaded garden spaces.

Athyrium filix-femina subsp. angustum f. rubellum 'Lady in Red', commonly known as the 'Lady in Red' fern, is a striking cultivar of the lady fern. This deciduous fern is renowned for its vibrant and colourful stems, which offer a beautiful contrast against the green fronds, creating an eye-catching display in any garden.

The 'Lady in Red' fern features feathery, finely divided fronds that can reach up to 60-90 cm in height, forming an elegant and graceful clump. The fronds are a rich, medium-green colour, providing a lush, verdant backdrop to the distinctive red to burgundy stems, which are the hallmark of this variety. This colouration is most intense in the early part of the growing season, gradually fading as the season progresses, but always retaining some level of its distinctive hue.

This fern prefers moist, well-drained soil and thrives in shady to partially shaded locations, making it an ideal choice for woodland gardens, shaded borders, or alongside water features. It is relatively low-maintenance, requiring only regular watering to keep the soil consistently moist. While it can tolerate brief periods of drought once established, prolonged dry spells should be avoided to prevent stress and maintain the plant’s vigour.

'Lady in Red' is hardy and can withstand temperatures down to -30°C (-22°F), making it suitable for a wide range of climates. Its elegant appearance and hardiness make it a popular choice among gardeners looking to add a touch of colour and texture to shaded areas. Additionally, this fern is deer-resistant and generally free from serious pests and diseases, further enhancing its appeal as a robust and reliable garden plant.

In summary, Athyrium filix-femina subsp. angustum f. rubellum 'Lady in Red' is a stunning and hardy fern that brings a unique and vivid splash of colour to shaded garden spaces, requiring minimal care and offering year-round interest.

The Agapanthus 'Summer Love Blue' is a striking herbaceous perennial, celebrated for its elegant structure and vivid floral display. Native to South Africa but well-suited to British gardens, this cultivar belongs to the lily family and is commonly known as African lily or lily of the Nile. It brings a touch of exotic charm with its lush, strappy foliage and upright, architectural form.

From mid to late summer, ‘Summer Love Blue’ produces masses of rounded flower heads, each consisting of numerous trumpet-shaped blooms in a rich, vibrant blue. These floral globes are borne on tall, slender stems that rise gracefully above the foliage, adding height and drama to borders, containers, or gravel gardens. The long-lasting flowers are not only visually appealing but also highly attractive to pollinators such as bees and butterflies.

This agapanthus is a relatively compact variety, making it ideal for smaller gardens or patio pots. It prefers a sunny position with well-drained soil and benefits from regular feeding during the growing season to encourage prolific flowering. While reasonably drought-tolerant once established, it thrives best with consistent moisture in summer.

‘Summer Love Blue’ is semi-evergreen in milder areas of the UK, where it may retain its foliage throughout winter. However, in colder regions, it’s advisable to provide some protection, such as mulching or moving potted specimens to a sheltered location. It’s generally low-maintenance, with deadheading and the occasional division every few years being the primary tasks.

Combining bold colour, long flowering periods, and excellent garden performance, Agapanthus 'Summer Love Blue' makes a superb addition to mixed borders, coastal gardens, or as a statement piece in a container. Its refined yet robust nature ensures it stands out in any garden setting, offering seasonal elegance with minimal effort.

Athyrium niponicum 'Metallicum' is a highly ornamental deciduous fern prized for its exceptional foliage colour and texture. Its softly arching fronds display a striking blend of silvery-grey tones with subtle metallic highlights and contrasting purple midribs, making it one of the most decorative ferns for shaded garden areas.

It is ideally suited to woodland gardens, shaded borders, and sheltered courtyards where it can be appreciated up close. This fern thrives in partial to full shade and prefers moist, well-drained soil that is rich in organic matter such as leaf mould or compost. Consistent moisture is important, particularly during dry periods, as it does not tolerate drought well.

Hardy in most UK gardens, it dies back in winter and re-emerges each spring with fresh, colourful growth. It pairs beautifully with hostas, heucheras, and other shade-loving perennials, adding contrast and a refined, elegant texture to planting schemes.

As a cultivar of Athyrium niponicum, it is relatively low maintenance, requiring only the removal of old fronds in late winter. Its unique colouring and compact habit make it an excellent choice for bringing light and interest to shaded spaces.