Plant Solutions

Season of interest: Spring

Height and spread: Up to 60cm × 40cm (2ft × 1ft 4in)

Companion plants: Pretty when bedded with tulips, but also handy for gap filling in a mixed or herbaceous border. Wallflowers work well with emerging lupin foliage, with tulips or with the hazy blue flowers of Brunnera macrophylla.

Erysimum

Perennial Wallflowers shortlived perennials, can be grown as biennials

Shrubby wallflower varieties with narrow, sometimes blue-grey leaves and a steady succession of stiff flower spikes held well clear of the leaves, and bearing four-petalled blooms in mauve, bronze, cream, yellow or red. Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’ is the best known but ‘Sunlight’ has yellow flowers and ‘Harpur Crewe’ small, double yellow, richly fragrant blooms.

Soil preference: Free-draining

Aspect: Sun

Season of interest: Spring, summer

Height and spread: Variable to 75cm × 60cm (2ft 6in × 2ft)

Companion plants: Good in a dry gravel or Mediterranean garden, with yellow-flowered Genista lydia and silver-leaved shrubs and herbs.

Digitalis purpurea

Foxglove Hardy biennial

Large, downy basal leaves in the first year are followed by tall, slender spikes furnished with many tubular downward-hanging flowers. The typical species has purplish pink flowers whose throats are thickly spotted with rusty marks, but garden forms come in a range of colours from white, through pale pink and apricot to deep purple.

Soil preference: Well-drained, but not too dry

Aspect: Shade or part shade

Season of interest: Late spring, early summer

Height and spread: Up to 2m × 60cm (6ft 6in × 2ft)

Companion plants: Excellent for woodland planting or to fill spaces between shrubs. Foxgloves are also lovely in cottage-style gardens, alongside cranesbills, old fashioned roses or with columbines.

Smyrnium perfoliatum

Biennial

A biennial with branched, winged stems and from mid-spring, showy, bract-like leaves which surround the flower umbels and are a vivid golden green. Lovely with the light coming through them, but this is an invasive plant which seeds a little too freely.

Soil preference: Any, not too damp

Aspect: Sun or shade

Season of interest: Spring

Height and spread. 1m × 45cm (3ft 3in × 1ft 6in)

Companion plants: Good for filling up spaces below trees, or allowing to spread with such other umbelliferous plants as sweet cicely or cow parsley. Also handsome when planted with red tulips, or with purple honesty Lunaria annua.

Hesperis matronalis

Dames Violet, Sweet Rocket Biennial or shortlived perennial

Cabbage family member with narrow leaves held on stout flower spikes that are topped with generous clusters of four-petalled fragrant blooms, the perfume being especially strong at twilight. Colours range from white, through pale mauve to soft purple. Replace flowered plants with self-sown seedlings.

Soil preference: Any, moist

Aspect: Sun or part shade

Season of interest: Spring, early summer

Height and spread: 1m × 30cm (3ft × 1ft)

Companion plants: A lovely species whose pale colours which show up well in poor light, and which go well with such bolder-hued early perennials as lupins, campanulas or even oriental poppies.

Biennials for summer (#ulink_38095480-d01e-5b88-ae73-db4e1276dee1)

Campanula medium

Canterbury Bells Hardy biennial

The showiest of all bell flowers, with rough-textured, simple leaves and thick, ribbed stems. The stems develop into generously endowed spikes whose huge, tubular bell flowers may be shades of blue, pink or white. ‘Cup and saucer’ varieties have a bell flower resting on a petal-like, coloured calyx. Double-flowered varieties are available from seed catalogues.

Soil preference: Well-drained

Aspect: Sun

Season of interest: Summer

Height and spread: 1m × 50cm (3ft × 1ft 8in)

Companion plants: A perfect cottage plant, showy but in gentle colours and along with sweet Williams, ideal for bridging the gap between spring and midsummer, following on from wallflowers. Beautiful with roses!

Salvia farinacea

Mealy Sage Tender biennial

Technically a perennial, but grown as a tender biennial or annual, the leaves are glossy but the flower stems are coated with a white mealy substance. The lipped flowers, produced throughout summer, are purple, blue or white. Salvia farinacea ‘Victoria’ is a popular bedding plant.

Soil preference: Any, fertile but free-draining

Aspect: Sun

Season of interest: Summer