Are you, or do you know, a dull old person? Well read on because Sweet Cicely may be the cure!John Gerard was an Elizabethan physician and gardener, who published what became the most famous of all herbals - and I thoroughly recommend reading it, for...

The origin of Chicory is described in a German folk tale. A young woman sat down at the side of a road to weep for her dead lover. None could console her, and so great was her grief that she resolved never to stop weeping unless she was turned into&h...

Matthiola incana 'Pillow Talk' has the most heavily scented flowers and just a few stems can fill a room with a lovely fragrance. This plant has long been a cottage garden favourite, grown in the border for its masses of white flowers, or for th...

This wonderful plant is called Fox and Cubs because of the dual appearance of bronzy-orange open flowers (the fox) alongside red-brown flower buds (the cubs). Tall stems hold the flowers above neat rosettes of dark green foliage from June to Sep...

Our British native plants have some of the prettiest flowers. This is Dropwort (Filipendula vulgaris), which has coral-pink buds which open to beautiful fluffy white flowers. Eminently suited to our British pollinators, and wonderful in the garden or...