April

Looking a little like a solar eclipse, ‘Ring of Fire’ is a dark centred sunflower that blooms with glowing red petals that gradually flare outwards to golden-yellow tips. Growing to a manageable 100 to 120cm (3½ to 4ft) tall with a branching habit, the flowers are pollenless. It is considered one of the best varieties for use as a cut flower.

Helianthus annuus 'ProCut White Nite' is a professional, pollenless cut-flower variety that is used by florists all over the world. The cream petals mature to white and contrast beautifully with the dark brown centre. They plants are uniform and vigorous in growth even under low temperatures.

An exciting addition to the ProCut line, ‘White Lite’ produces tall, ivory-petaled flowers with golden centres. This blonde beauty is sophisticated enough for use in wedding flowers and sturdy enough for market bouquets. They are uniform and vigorous in growth even under low temperatures.

Helianthus 'ProCut Red' is a stunning new dark addition to this widely grown series. Flowers are a deep, rich rusty-red, one of the best dark colours on the market. Dark chocolaty centers gradually give way to ruby ringed petals that fade to a lighter tip. Sow mid spring to mid summer for continuous blooms.

Helianthus 'ProCut Plum' is an elegant sunflower with petals the most delicious mix of soft colours. Café-Au-lait lightly brushed with dusky bronze-crimson. In the vase it mixes well with other blooms in bronze and reddish tones. Just 60 to 65 days to maturity, sow mid spring to mid summer and cut when the petals begin to unfurl from the face

Lighter than orange and darker than yellow, Helianthus ‘ProCut Peach' is the latest colour to be added to the series, a beautiful warm, pale yellow hue that shimmers towards the peach-coloured range. It produces perfectly shaped, single pollenless blooms. Sow mid spring to mid summer for continuous blooms.

Giant Sunflower 'Mongolian Giant' is a true giant reaching up to 420cm (14ft) tall with one of the largest flowering sunflower seed heads available, up to 45cm (18in) across. One of the largest-seeded sunflower varieties available to gardeners, the plants are ideal to grow to provide food for birds to eat over-winter.

Helianthus ‘Ikarus’ is a fairly recent introduction, but one that has started to make huge waves. This premium pollenless sunflower has a unique habit, they are basal branching, resulting in masses of primrose-yellow blooms each with glorious dark chocolate-brown hearts. They grow 90 to 120cm (3 to 4ft) tall.

If you like well-branched, free-flowering, traditional sunflowers that are not too tall, 'Holiday' is the one you've been looking for. At 120cm (4ft) tall, with golden yellow petals and dark centres, it bears armfuls of cheery 15 to 20cm blooms. Irresistible for cut flower bouquets and for a large garden planting.

Great big fluffy golden heads the size of a dinner plate. This whopper of a sunflower has the same stunning densely packed yellow petals as the beloved dwarf 'Teddy Bear' sunflower but on a far larger scale. They make excellent cut flowers, long lasting and are very impressive in a vase.

Developed for the cut flower industry, the 'Sunrich' series has been the market leader for the last fifteen years. Vibrant lemon yellow petals with creamy lemon tips surround a dark center disk, It is ‘day length neutral’ so will provide consistent flowers, just two months from planting, irrespective of the amount of daylight hours that it receives.

Dwarf sunflowers for small gardens and containers are always in demand and ‘Lemon Cutie’ looks to have everything we need in a dwarf sunflower. Semi-double and pollenless. Not only is it dwarf with multiple branches, but you will never have seen such a stunning and unusual, lemon coloured Sunflower.

Helianthus annuus 'F1 Gemini Summer' is F1 hybrid tall cut flower variety with golden yellow, double flowers. This professional quality sunflower is a pollenless, uniflora type that grows 90 to 120cm tall. Cut the flowers when the petals begin to unfurl from the face.

Sunflower ‘Autumn Beauty’ produces numerous long-stemmed flowers from summer to late autumn in a variety of solid and bi-colour bright warm colours - golden yellow, bronze, brown and burgundy. The long stems are excellent for cut flowers and look absolutely stunning in a vase on their own.

Helenium hoopesii is considered by some to be the most valuable of the species. It blooms with bright golden yellow disk florets that each form a kind of rounded knob that transforms the flower from your typical two-dimensional daisy into something much more interesting and sculptural.

If there's one plant that can inject a little razzle-dazzle into the border during gloomy late summers it is Helenium. From late July 'Helena' blooms with masses of vibrant blooms in a spectrum of rich colours from gold to mahogany red. Perfect for the back of the border and wonderful for cutting.

Gypsophila paniculata 'Snowflake' is a pretty double-flowered baby’s breath that offers big airy clouds of white blooms in early summer. The flower panicles are strong-stemmed, compact and bloom a bit earlier than standard forms. Each stem has hundreds of tiny white flowers on wire-thin branches, giving an airy, soft impression.

Gypsophila has recently become rather trendy among celebrity and designer florists, even taking centre stage as the main flower focus of bouquets and arrangements. 'Covent Garden' produces hundreds of tiny, single white flowers on wire-thin branches, giving an airy impression.

Geum rivale, the Water avens is a native perennial of slow-draining or wet soils. Flowering prolifically it is particularly useful in damp soils and makes a good show besides ponds. It produces both nectar and pollen and is an excellent plant for attracting pollinators and amphibians to the garden.

Many gardeners look for easy to grow, reliable perennials that provide a bright, cheerful display of colour early in the season. Geum coccineum ‘Borisii-Strain’ flowers the first year from seed producing wonderful vivid orange-red toned flowers from late spring into summer.