Aster

This lovely cottage garden plant has spikes of purple-eyed white flowers that shoot up from glossy dark evergreen foliage. Flowers emerge from early summer and bloom right the way until early autumn. This plant is a biennial, so avoid cutting back spent flowers to allow them to self-seed.

This evergreen perennial stands out because of it’s unusual look with its sturdy flower stems that are covered in whorls of pale yellow hooded flowers. After flowering these turn into architectural seedheads that give interest to your border in the bleak winter months and offer shelter for small insects.

This clump-forming perennial with grey-green leaves bears small nodding red flowers from early summer that turn into extraordinary feathery seedheads. The foliage turns red in autumn which add interest later in the season. Geum Triflorum grows well in dry, free-draining soil and is drought-tolerant once established.