Heliopsis helianthoides var. scabra

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.

Eryngiums are very robust plants that grow well in full sun and can be tolerant to drought. The plants bear spikey cone-shaped flowerheads in blue and silver-grey tones. Spent flowerheads give winter interest to your border, so don’t cut them back straight away.

Caryopteris is a small deciduous shrub with aromatic grey-green leaves and delicate blue flowers that starts blooming in late summer which makes it ideal for adding colour to the garden later in the season. We recommend planting Caryopteris into patio containers when still small and then into your garden border once it has outgrown the container. Once the plant has established it is very tolerant to drought.