THE LAST WORD
I don't think I could pick three!
I think it's fair to say most gardeners have different favourite plants in different seasons, because the plants we like in spring have all but disappeared by the time summer comes, maybe by the time autumn comes. So quite often we can have different plants in different seasons.
Things I really love in my garden right now are the shuttlecock ferns. I absolutely love when they come back every year - it is just the unfurling motion of them getting taller and taller every day.
I love alliums in the garden, probably because they don't grow very well here, so it's a little bit of a hit or miss.When they do grow though, I am absolutely overjoyed, because alliums make the garden look like a Chelsea show garden.
I would not be without hardy geraniums in the garden. They cover a multitude of sins, flower for a really long period, and they are really easy to split and divide.
If I had to pick my top three though, as Laura asked me on the podcast, then lupins would absolutely feature. I am an absolute lupin lover!
I know a lot of people moan about hostas because slugs love them as much as I do, but I have found varying ways to live with that.
And probably foxgloves. If I only had lupins, hostas, and foxgloves, I would have no seasonal interest in the autumn and wintertime, but I would have the most beautiful garden in late spring into early summer.
It's not just the flowers I love in these plants: I love the form of them. I love seeing hosta leaves unfurl from the ground and the way in which they grow and open.
I love the shape of the lupin leaves when it rains, they just retain those drops of moisture like little diamonds on stars.
And I love the jelly bean spikes of foxgloves. They bring structure to our garden, they bring height, and they are great for pollinators. There is nothing better if you've got five minutes free in the garden, just sit and watch a bee going in and out, and in and out of all the little bells on foxgloves, it is quite mesmerising.
So those would be definitely, I think, be my top three: lupins, hostas, and foxgloves.
But then if you ask me again in three months' time, as the season changes, something else would be up there in the top three!
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