August

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.

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.

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.

Helianthus annuus 'Cut Flower Mixture' offers a diverse range of sunflower varieties that are suited to outdoor cut flower production. In a wide range of shapes and colours, lemon, golds and reds. The heights range from 80 to 150cm (32 to 60in). They are lovely in borders or vases.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 'Ruby F1' has a dark centre is surrounded by a dense array of rich deep ruby-red petals that form large 15cm (6in) flowers, on plants that are 150cm (5ft) tall. Suitable as a bouquet flower, cut the flowers as soon as all the petals unfurl. sown directly where they are to grow, they are very easy to grow and fast to flower.

A new introduction that can be grown for use as a patio plant or as a cut flower. Early blooming and growing to just 100cm (3ft) with golden-orange petals and dark brown centres 'Sonja' produces a spray of flowering side branches that surround the main stem. Durable in the garden and long lived in the vase.

Sunflower 'Soraya' is the first Sunflower ever to win an AAS award. It produces lovely rich tangerine-orange flowers with dark brown centres The vigorous, self-supporting plants stand 150 to 180cm (5 to 6ft) tall. Prized for cut flower arrangements, they produce 20 to 25 flowers from each plant.

Helianthus debilis 'Italian Green Heart' produces creamy white flowers with contrasting green centres. Growing 100 to 120cm tall, the flowers are perfect for fresh, cut flower arrangements - especially if gathered while they are still in bud.

Helianthus ‘Vanilla Ice’ is one of the prettiest sunflowers varieties available. With clusters of delicate pale creamy-yellow flowers with dark chocolate centres this compact variety grows to just 120 to 150cm (4 to 5ft) tall is suitable for the border or can be left add a naturalised charm to a wildlife friendly garden.

Perennial sunflowers typically don’t grow quite as tall and large as their annual friends. However Helianthus maximiliani is a wonderful exception. It grows slowly through the summer months as a group of short stems, until late summer when the stems bolt and the flowers head for the sky.

Most gardeners are familiar with the annual sunflower, however, it is the perennial varieties that coexist most happily with other garden plants. Helianthus mollis is a lovely perennial with butter-yellow flowers. It grows 120cm tall and requires little more attention than an annual cutting to the ground.

Hosta are grown predominantly for their outstanding foliage, from leaves as small as a teaspoon up to those larger than a dinner plate, colours range from deep blues to silvers, darkest shiny greens to bright yellows, from a single solid hue to the myriad of variegations the choice is almost overwhelming.

'Melton Pastels' is a great border plant, densely flowering plant with strong stalks of pin cushion flowers in shades of shades of pink, cherry red, mauve and purple. The tall stems make excellent cut flowers and are good for the middle of the border, giving a succession of blooms through till autumn.