With wide trumpet shaped flowers in a beautiful cherry red, Penstemon 'Sweet Cherry' deserves pride of place in your garden. The long-lasting blooms appear in summer above a flush of glossy, semi-evergreen foliage and continue well into autumn, long after other plants have started to fade. Penstemons are undemanding and easy to grow hardy perennials, and tolerate almost any position in the garden, withstand rain or drought, and even resist damage from slugs. Height: 60cm (24). Spread: 45cm (18).
Feathery panicles float above a dense clump of linear, evergreen leaves to form a cloud of ornamental seedheads. An undemanding grass that looks particularly effective in mixed borders.
With its exotic glossy green serrated-edged leaves, this is a great choice for a shady corner of the garden. The Sweet Tea Vine grows quickly, providing ground cover or scrambling up a wall in no time at all. In summer it has small pale yellow flowers followed by black fruits. Gynostemma pentaphyllum, also known as Jiaogulan, comes from the forests of China where it is used as a medicinal herb. It is a tender plant, best protected from frost, so if possible it should be grown in a container and brought under cover in winter. Height and Spread: Up to 4m (13').
Ceanothus thyrsiflorus repens is a low-growing, evergreen shrub that hold a prestigious RHS Award of Garden merit. It produces a generous display of lilac-blue flowers from late spring to early summer. Creeping Blueblossom is native to Coastal California, and is an ideal choice for the front of borders and rock gardens, creating a dense and drought tolerant groundcover. Ceanothus thyrsiflorus var. repens also looks superb in a large container, where its cascading stems and abundant pretty blue blooms form an attractive patio feature and attract bees. Height: 1m (3?). Spread: 2.5m (8?).
Grow these penstemon in your annual beds as well as your perennial borders! They're much longer flowering than antirrhinums and boast larger blooms. Easy to maintain and offering years of performance, they'll flower and flower almost all summer in a superb range of colours, including many bicolours; just remove spent flower spikes once blooms have faded.
Re-usable plastic black labels, that are perfect for adding to pots and planters, so it is clear what the plants and seedlings growing in them are.
A rich, shining blue lobelia, producing a cascade of flowers over a long period, that rarely fade in even the brightest of sunshine. Trailing lobelia 'Sapphire Cascade' makes a sparkling addition to containers, flower pouches™ and window-boxes. An easy to grow annual that is deservedly popular for its versatility and long flowering period. Trails to: 25cm (10). Spread: 15cm (6).
A plant collector's item for decades. Husker's Red is an unusual Penstemon offering maroon-red , occasionally bronze-green foliage when grown from seed. This is coupled with contrasting spikes of blushed pink flowers making useful late summer colour for bordersHeight: 50-75cm (20-30in)
Probably the most winter-hardy, resilient Penstemon we have ever found! Bushy mounds of deep green foliage are enhanced by unusual frosty white, bicoloured blooms. Flowers throughout the summer in borders or large containers