My Favourite Plants – the Fab 4 I’d have in any garden

Do you have favourite plants? Plants that no matter what garden you’ve have, you’ve tried to include? Or perhaps ones you’ve never managed to grow but which have sentimental value to you?

Someone asked me the other day for my favourite plants, and I have to say listing them was both tricky and interesting. It really made me think about why I love certain plants so much. Forcing me to look at them with renewed eyes, which is never a bad thing. Anyway, here are four I came up with…

Hosta

I don’t think I could operate without a hosta in my life. I know lots of people will think but ‘they’re just all leaves – the flowers are rubbish.’

Agreed, their flowers are often pretty insipid. But what’s wrong with focusing on fabulous leaves? I love them in all their leafy glory.

I also rather perversely love the fact they die back without a trace. With them gone over autumn and winter, I often forget where they are planted. Then the spring comes and you see their early shoots peeking through the soil. There are few things more exciting than being reminded that your favourite hosta is about to return!

That’s why my list of favourite plants has to include a hosa. But which one?

There are hundreds of different hostas, with leaf colours going from acid limes to glaucus blue, through to lush rich deep greens – with every shade of green between. And the leaf shapes are full of variety too.

So you’d think that choosing one hosta as a favourite would be a tricky business.

Which One? Sum and Substance

But anyone thinking that, hasn’t met the hosta Sum and Substance.

He’s huge, with luscious thick leaves which even the most agressive slug stands no chance of munching. (By the way I always think of hostas as boys – don’t ask me why! The only exception is when the hosta variety in question has a girl’s name, such as Katie Q or Julie Morrs.)

Anyway, I’m digressing badly, let’s get back to Sum and Substance. The experts say he grows to 90cm tall and 1.5metres wide if not bigger when given the space to grow. But because my bad boy is in a container, he’s constrained to about two-thirds this size. But he’s very happy and very very hefty.

The leaves grow 45cm long and almost 38cm wide – bonkersly big. They are a glossy chartreuse but will go gold, if you grow your Sum and Substance in the sun. Yes, you read that right, this hosta is happy in full sun or full shade. This means that no matter what garden I have, I will always be able to have a Sum and Substance in my life.

Other than putting him a sheltered position (as otherwise the wind would rip his huge leaves) he receives hardly any TLC from me. As he’s in a pot I water him during dry spells and I will feed him once in a while, but not as actively as I might other plants in containters. But despite all this semi-neglect he thrives outside my kitchen window – and that’s why he’s on my list of favourite plants.

Geranium

My next nomination is one of my favourite plants for a completely different, and highly personal, reason. It’s a geranium. Geraniums are incredibly useful plants to have. You can find them in so many colours and capable of thriving in all sorts of conditions. But my absolute favourite is Geranium macrorrhizum ‘Ingwersen’s Variety’.

It has plenty going for it in the looks department. As well as the palest of soft pink flowers in May and June (mine actually blooms beyond this), it has lovely green foliage that spreads slowly but steadily. Deeply romantic and soft in the summer its leaves turn an eyecatching red in autumn.

Tough as old boots but as pretty as a peach, it’s my ‘go to’ geranium. And if you don’t have a massive container, but want impact, it won’t let you down. I’ve an old chimney pot full of the beauty which sits on my patio. It’s not a huge container, but wow – what a statement. As you can see above, it’s literally overflowing.

But the reason why not just this variety of geranium but this actual plant itself is on my list is because it was once on the patio in my parents’ home in South Wales. When both my parents died it was one of the treasured posessions I took from their home. The geranium was in the chimney pot – so I simply lifted it pot and all and brought it to our home in the Cotswolds.

The geranium was thriving. Given its sentimental value, I was scared to death I’d kill it. So I didn’t change a thing about it – and still haven’t. As a result, all these years on, the chimney pot is still full of the same lovely Welsh soil. I don’t do anything to the plant other than give it the odd bit of tomato feed in the summer. And it thrives – and rewards me with cuttings.

I’ve now go its progeny at the front of our cottage too..growing in the gravel as you can see above.

I’ll readily admit that it’s a sentimental plant choice – but I love it.

Erigeron

My plants so far have been chosen for their huge personality and impact (the hosta Sum and Substance) and their sentimental link with gardens of my childhood (the geranium). My third choice for this list I choose for its versatility. It’s Erigeron aka Mexican Fleabane.

Erigeron Karvinskianus to give it its full name, is one of my favourites for good reason. The small daisy-like plant has a big impact wherever you put it. It’s a brilliant pollenator (attracting butterflies and moths), it’s versatile and no trouble at all. It’s a trooper!

The perennial forms a wide, 15cm high mat of frothy flowers from Spring to Autumn. These start off white and turn pinkish purple.

Now this tiny daisy like plant may appear to be a scruffy little thing. But I think it’s incredibly useful and very beatiful. On a patio is brings an ethereal quality, running around the paving cracks and creating a fairy grotto effect.

But erigeron also acts as a wonderful underplanting for roses and clematis in containers.

It fills the gaps and softens the overall effect. For instance, in the past I have had Erigeron planted with a lovely yellow rose, The Poet’s Wife in a large pot. The Erigeron created an overflowing cushion of daisies, whose yellow centres picked out the yellow of the rose.

Equally I like it running through flower beds, softening the look of planting and creating a rather wonderful, wild impact.

Erigeron’s tumbling, spreading nature also makes it ideal for covering up unsightly areas. I’ve planted it along the edge of a rather neglected raised wooden bed, which among other things houses my compost heap.

This is an awkward area which would otherwise look very scruffy. But by planting Erigeron and irises along the edge of the bed, the whole effect works nicely. It looks as though lots of thought and care has gone into it. But it really hasn’t, I’ve just planted the Erigeron and left it to do its thing.

Not many plants are this effortless (or fast) at masking eyesores.

It’s versatility, usefulness and beauty mean I will always have some erigeron somewhere in my garden.

Rose

A list of my favourite plants wouldn’t be complete without a rose. But choosing one rose is no easy task. I have over 15 in our garden. And despite the blackspot, which is inevitably equally abundant, the roses are lovely.

But if I could only have one rose I’d choose Jacqueline du Pre.

This glorious shrub rose is in my sunny border next to my patio and is possibly my favourite plant on the planet! She (unlike the hostas all my roses are girls in my head) is named after Jacqueline du Pre the celebrated cellist, who was an incredible talent and died far too young. Check out the link to see her playing, conducted by her husband. It’s very moving.

I don’t know whether the name of – and story behind – the rose makes me lovely the plant all the more, but there’s no doubting the rose is an absolute beauty.

The Jacqueline du Pre rose looks slightly old-fashioned, with wonderfully creamy curling white petals which have a hint of a blush about them. These petals set off the gold stamens which have a delicious raspberry colour at their base. She also has a lovely light musk fragrance.

I have her planted near rasberry red astrantias, I think the combination works really nicely. She elevates the astrantias into something quite exotic.

The other reason I love this rose so much is she is robust. Jacqueline (as I call her) grows vigorously and flowers relentlessly but only reaches about 3.5 ft tall and has a 3 ft spread. So she doesn’t throw her weight around. She’s a true virtuoso, so nothing upstages her, but she’s no prima donna. She’s not sickly or temperamental. She just blooms and blooms. So for her no-nonsense flower power and scent, I must have this rose on my list of favourite plants. I think if I had any garden, I’d find a way to have Jacqueline there too.

So that’s it. My four favourite plants which I wouldn’t want to be without.

What would be on your list? Do share.

Meanwhile…happy gardening x