Your absolute 'must-have' plants

[UnrequitedSkink]

I need inspiration, my borders are looking bare...also plants that grow easily and look good...no time for prima donnas here! I like plants that clump and don't fall over. Ooh, and your favourite planting combinations too!

I don't ask a lot do I?

Bumping for you because I want to know, too

Aubretia, lily of the valley, penstemon, clematis, climbing roses, errrrr.....don't know the names of the others

Mostly I like perennial plants because they are easy to look after and are reliable year in year out. However it can leave the garden a bit bare in winter so I have a few primulas and cyclamen for colour. I have a few small trees for winter interest, and of course the daffs in spring.

Hydrangea!!!!! That's it!

Oh don't get campanula, it looks pretty but believe me it will overtake your garden in no time!

That depends which campanula you get. It's a huge genus with loads of species which have many different forms.

My must have at the moment is hellebore. Just started flowering and will go on for a good five months.
Lavender should be in every garden IMO. Have more than one!

I love Californian Lilacs, blue passionflowers, all of the smaller flowered clematis, foxgloves (although perhaps not if you have small children), forsythia, hostas, wallflowers in spring (the smell!), sweet peas.

Day lilies.Euphorbia.Japanese anenome.Calendula.

I had some weird campanula last year, it grew vertically until it flowered at which point it gave up the ghost and flopped along the ground. I'm not very good at staking things (I can never hide the stakes) and last year was a bad year for plants that wanted to grow sideways! I love the pretty blue campanula that looks like delicate little bells though, I'd like a patch of that... what sort of hellebores have you got CuttedUpPear?

Love foxgloves but am waiting til the littlest one is a bit bigger, hostas are a no-no due to slugs, adore clematis, adore lavenders and have 3 (though 2 are a bit slow starting this year and I'm not sure whether they've croaked), wallflowers are wonderful but have I left it a bit late?

Some good ideas there though, I've never had calendula or day lilies...are Japanese anemones known as ranunculus? I loooove those, are they tricky to grow?

Japanese anemones are not ranunculus, they flower in late summer and are incredibly easy to grow - in fact they can become a bit thuggish if they are very happy.

Couldn't live without good roses, alchemilla mollis, clematis, alliums, geranium psilostemon, tomatoes, courgettes, daphne.

My hellebore is Helleborus orientalis, a lovely dusky purple. I have it planted on top of a wall which is on eyeline level with the kitchen window so I can still enjoy it when the weathers not too nice.

It has just had loads of babies, if anyone is interested in receiving a package of little seedlings, pm me and I could post you some though. They would need potting on and planting out and would not flower this year; they will take a couple of years to start bulking up enough for flowering.

Can't stand alchemilla mollis though as I used to have to remove it from a huge and casually planted terrace where it self seeded prolifically.

Alchemilla's a bustard to keep in one place! Don't do it!

Nepeta, iris, delphiniums, lupins and kniphofia all make a nice frothy/spiky contrast, and all swell out to fill gaps, if not the first year, then definitely by the second! I've also got some stachys mixed in.

If you mean things that will fill space around this time of year until the later annuals get going, then dicentras will take up the space.

Euphorbias - only the ones that form clumps like e. characias 'humptey dumpty', which is fab and evergreen. Don't plant ones that run, like e.fireglow. Hardy geraniums are brilliant. Just cut them down after flowering and they will flower again in a few weeks. Lavendar is great - evergreen too and smells so good in the summer.

I love buddleias, you just need to cut them right back in spring so they dont get too big. I also have some buddleia buzz which is a smal variety for pots.

Also hydrangeas look lovely, the flowers last for ages.

I have a laveteria which has lovely flowers and doesnt need much care.

For more ground cover, I like hardy geraniums as other people have said, as they flower again and again.

All of the above, plus honeysuckle, roses and aquilegias.

My favourite plant is erysimum. The flowers last a long time (from April to October).

I am also a big fan of primroses. I have quite a few clumps and I split them every year. They have been really good value and again, they seem to be flowering for most of the year.

I vote for verbena bonariensis. It grows over a metre high, needs no staking, and you can see other plants through its stems. Butterflies love it, and it has a long flowering period. A perennial, it just keeps coming back very year.

It does well in southern England, but haven't seen it in the north.

Yes, verbena bonariensis.
Underplanted with Ophiopogon nigrescens (black lily turf)

A good low maintenance combo!

Another vote for hardy geraniums (so different from the ones in pots) and euphorbias. Also a skimmia, though not clumping. And this year I want to find the right sunny spot for gaura.

Oh and persicaria Red Dragon - the flowers are nondescript but the foliage is lovely.

Tulips in spring

Viburnums

feverfew is another good one.

I've got (or I had) several verbena plants but they look quite quite dead at the minute. I'm sure by this time last year they were sprouting leaves, is anyone else's still dormant? I was thinking of underplanting with crocosmia bulbs for contrast...if they've made it through the winter!

I'll have to do some hardy geranium research, but love the look of the persicaria!

Ha, that erysimum is what I was trying to find the name out of last year! There's an enormous clump outside the library and it looks fabulous.

I love Ceratostigma; small shrub with pretty blue flowers in late summer and the leaves turn a very pretty red before dropping in the autumn.

If you've got space for a fabulous small tree, you could do a lot worse than Acacia pravissima. Evergreen, yellow flowers in spring and a wonderful frondy habit. It dapples sunlight beautifully too because it has little 'phyllodes' instead of leaves, so not too much shade.