Tom’s Plant Picks

Cosmos

Because sometimes a garden just needs more flowers.

Easy, generous and wonderfully informal, Cosmos brings a long season of colour and movement. Lovely for filling gaps in borders and giving a garden a relaxed, slightly wild feel.

Verbena bonariensis 'Bampton'

Tall, airy and brilliant for pollinators.

One of Tom's favourites for adding height without making a border feel crowded. It moves beautifully in the breeze and bees love it.

Echinacea

Bold flowers with plenty of staying power.

A strong perennial for sunny borders, with long-lasting flowers and excellent structure. Particularly good alongside grasses and naturalistic planting.

Statice

A little bit of seaside character.

Tough, colourful and useful. Statice copes well with sunny conditions and poorer soils, and its papery flowers are excellent for drying.

Mint

Yes, even the spreading kind.

Aromatic, useful, attractive to pollinators and wonderfully vigorous. It can make excellent groundcover when given somewhere it is allowed to roam — just don't plant it where you need it to behave.

Scented Pelargonium

A plant you experience as much as you see.

Beautiful foliage, delicate flowers and wonderful scents released when the leaves are brushed. Perfect in pots, beside paths or somewhere you can reach out and enjoy them.

Smokebush

Cotinus coggygria

A little drama without being difficult.

Beautiful foliage, unusual smoky flower heads and fantastic autumn colour. Gives a border structure and presence without feeling too formal.

Yarrow

Achillea millefolium

Tough, beautiful and very at home here.

A brilliant naturalistic plant for sunny borders and wildlife-friendly gardens. Its flat flower heads sit beautifully amongst grasses and meadow-style planting.

Field Scabious

Knautia arvensis

Soft, informal and wonderfully Suffolk.

A delicate, wildlife-friendly perennial that brings movement and pollinators into the garden. Particularly good where a less manicured feel is wanted.

Oxeye Daisy

Leucanthemum vulgare

Simple flowers that never really go out of fashion.

Bright, cheerful and excellent for creating a relaxed meadow feeling. Looks especially good allowed to mingle rather than planted too formally.

Pittosporum

Good structure, year-round interest.

Useful for giving a garden shape through winter, particularly in sheltered positions. Choose from varieties with different foliage colours and forms.

Euphorbia

Architectural, reliable and slightly weird — in a good way.

Evergreen foliage and distinctive flowers make Euphorbias excellent for giving borders structure when other plants disappear for winter. Some varieties are particularly useful in dry conditions.

Two-Tone Snapdragon

Antirrhinum majus

A little bit theatrical.

Old-fashioned charm with a modern twist, especially the two-tone varieties. Upright flower spikes bring colour and structure to borders, while the individual blooms have that wonderfully familiar snapdragon character. Great for pollinators and excellent for cutting.

Zinnia

Zinnia elegans

A proper splash of summer.

Bright, generous and wonderfully cheerful, zinnias bring a proper splash of summer colour. They flower for weeks, make excellent cut flowers and their open-flowered forms are especially good for pollinators.