Dry Areas

Eschscholzia 'Thai Silk' boasts large semi-double blooms in breathtaking jewel tones and a chiffon-like texture reminiscent of glorious oriental silks. This exotic mix contains the Thai Silk series of colours: Appleblossom, Rose, Apricot Chiffon, and Pink Champagne.

'Thai Silk' is a stunning range of California poppies of superb quality with silky flowers. 'Appleblossom Chiffon' produces very double flowers in an ethereal shade of shimmering, dappled silvery-pink. Very easy to grow, they are attractive to pollinators and perfect for cutting.

A beautiful and sophisticated variety, Eschscholzia californica Thai Silk produces extra double silky flowers, 'Pink Champagne' in a unique shade of soft champagne-pink on a cream base. Very easy to grow, they are attractive to pollinators and perfect for cutting.

Gaura 'Cool Breeze' is a stunning new variety that is now available from seed. It produces a flurry of dazzling pure white, starry blooms on graceful slender stems. They have pale green stamens and buds instead of the usual pink. A first year flowering perennial, very easy to grow it will bloom in around 14 weeks from an early sowing.

Gaura lindheimeri 'Sparkle White' is a stunning hardy perennial. A Winner of the Fleuroselect Gold Medal, this bushy, clump forming variety has a neat, compact habit and produces a flurry of dazzling white, starry blooms on graceful slender stems from early summer right through to autumn.

Introduced in 2008, Gaura lindheimeri 'Summer Breeze' has now been made available in seed form. A hardier, more robust variety, long blooming and floriferous, it produces open, willowy, vase-shaped plants, with long graceful stems that suspend numerous little, dainty, butterfly shaped flowers at their tips.

From the Tian Shan Mountains of northern China comes this tough little subshrub that is among the finest expressions of silver foliage to be found. Helichrysum thianshanicum is a superb silver leaved evergreen, subshrub that forms a tight mound of eye-catching silver foliage.

Herniaria glabra is a relatively unknown perennial that deserves to be used more often in our gardens. The nursery industry calls it ‘Green Carpet’ and well they should. This lovely bright green creeper spreads effortlessly in all directions. An excellent choice for between flagstones or as a lawn substitute.

Knautia arvensis is an attractive native perennial herb of well drained grassland. It can be found throughout Europe in meadows, rough pasture, hedgerows and verges. Though it is by nature a perennial, it will flower and produce seed the first year if grown as an annual, either autumn or spring sown.

Munstead Lavender is a fragrant robust English lavender that, due to its short size and tightly held blooms, makes a great hedge. It flowers profusely in the spring, after which a good pruning will provide an attractive grey bush with highly aromatic leaves.

'Ellagance' are first year flowering lavenders, 'Ellagance Ice’ is the white flowered variety. The deliciously perfumed, pure white blooms make an enchanting informal aromatic hedge in the garden. The flowers are produced from July onwards and are highly attractive to bees.

Fragrant, free flowering and heat and drought tolerant. Lavandula angustifolia ‘Vicenza Blue’ bloom the first year from seed. This especially fine lavender has bold clustered flower spikes of deep lavender-blue from mid July to early September.

With tall spikes of pink and mauve tiny flowers, Linaria ‘Canon J Went’ is an undemanding hardy perennial. Bone hardy, long-lived and drought-resistant, they are wonderful in the perennial border, for naturalised planting schemes, mass plantings or gravel gardens and a great choice for cut flowers.

The more I see of this rather attractive little plant, the more I grow to appreciate it. Now I seem to spot it all over the place, in meadows, woodland, road verges and gardens. The bright yellow fragrant flowers can be seen in blossom from the end of April through until mid September.

'Miss Jekyll Rose' is much less common than the usual blue varieties of Nigella, bearing wonderful rose-pink flowers which seem to float amongst the finely cut leaves. One of the most interesting shaped flowers you will ever see, and once the petals drop, the blossoms transform into little fairy lanterns and the seed pods can be dried for winter decorations