What are your absolute FAVE top 3 plants/flowers

[Mrsplants]

Just for fun!

If you had to pick your top 3 favourite flowers, plants, shrubs or trees, what would you pick?

For me (it took a while to decide!):

1. Amethyst lips, salvia. I love this because it seems to flower forever in my garden, smells amazing and doesn’t seem to require much care from me.
2. Honeysuckle, the white and yellow one (not sure of the proper name!). I just love how fragrant it is. When I’m on a walk I always smell it before I see it.
3. Anemone ‘Mr Fokker’ and ‘sylphide’. They are like poppies but blue and pink. They are quite tall so stand out in my borders and produce the most beautiful flowers in spring.

Looking forward to hearing what everyone else picks 😃

I don’t think so but I also follow a garden designer Polly someone on insta and I was happy to hear her say look around your garden and see what’s delivering now and plant it. She said blossom and daffodils.

I follow that already so was happy

My number one flower by quite some way is daffodils. I grew up in the north of Scotland and my Dad planted them along the farm verges so they always remind me of him. They are so cheerful and I love the smell.

No 2 is sweetpeas because I love the scent. I'm rubbish at growing them though.

No 3 is hard. Bluebells or snowdrops or fritillary probably. I'm all about the spring flowers.

Dahlias, peonies and hydrangeas

Peonies
Dhalias (love cafe au lait at the moment)
Jasmine because they smell amazing

Sunflowers
gerberas
night scented stock

Hawthorn trees - love the may flowers, the folklore, the spiky thornes
Daffodils - such a relief to see them each year as they encourage the sun to come back
Dog roses/oak trees/daisies/foxgloves are all close for third

I’m not much of a gardener but in my garden, and when in flower, I love:

Winter Daphne for its amazing scent
Wisteria for its scent and beauty
Hawthorn for its clouds of flowers

I can never understand it when people say that about cherry trees. Mine are in bloom of pink and white now, they’ll be a fabulous green all summer, and the most amazing burnt orange and red in autumn. They are far more interesting than most trees

Your gardener friend isn't appreciating the joy from anticipating those blossoms - when the first couple appear, the slight changes and then the huge mass of beauty, filled with bees (bumbles, honeybees, solitary bees), every bird for miles (did you know that parakeets turn completely invisible in them, despite being luminous green and blue tits, great tits, coal tits, goldcrests and tiny, tiny firecrests with their orange heads absolutely adore them?).

They're worthwhile all year round and massively, hugely (and culturally for an entire nation) invaluable precisely because of their transience.

Lilac
Hyacinth
Ornamental thistle

Favourite in my imaginary garden of perfect nursed specimens;
Campanulas
Dieramas
Thalictrum

Favourites in reality aka. Proper Doers:
Libertia grandiflora
Aster x frikartii monch
Sanguisorbias

Oak trees,
Marigolds,
Bluebells and wild garlic.

I’m proud of my little garden. It was all decking when I bought my house and now it’s a proper garden so I don’t mind if I show off lol.

Like a pp my favourites change from time to time but at the moment:

Dahlia (last year these came up wonderfully so I’m looking forward to see if they come back. I had 2 varieties last year and this year I’m adding lots more varieties. I have gone for the big dinner plate ones for a bit more impact. I’m excited about the cafe au lait so fingers crossed. I also got two varieties with my DDs names in them ❤️)

Hydrangeas (I have 4 different varieties now)

Different Types of sunflowers (last year I had the usual variety. This year I’m doing a few normal and titans)

I forgot I had put some anemone bulbs in lol. So it was a pleasant surprise when they popped up and they look great. They are the mr Fokker a pp mentioned.
My tulips never let me down and are a show stopper in spring.
My lovely friends got me a hydrangea and rose last year. The hydrangea is going strong but unfortunately my dog ate the rose. I managed to revive it somewhat but then my dog decided to stomp on it over and over when barking at next doors dog.

Like @Myblueclematiswe have had very high winds here too and I live on top of a hill. My spring flowers are suffering. Your username has made me think about my beautiful red clematis I have in the front garden. Last year I had plenty of people stop to look, we live on a walking route, that’s fine, but I also caught two different people taking some of the flowers and one a cutting. Naughty. I don’t mind if they asked I would say yes, but to just do it ! CF. I have DDs on watch now like security guards lol.

I am led to believe we are getting more very cold weather next week too so I think I planted my veg out too soon. Oh well.

well I have gone on a bit sorry. I think I stretched the subject a bit there. I blame the fact I live with people who don’t share my gardening interests so this is the only way I can talk about it with people who understand lol.

This is so tough!

Geums
Lavender
Erigeron

And honourable mentions for pretty much any rambling, single-flowered rose, my erysium that has flowered literally all year, and salvia hotlips because it's just so damn cheery and smells great.

I love..
Love In A Mist
Erigeron
Cornflowers

Tulips
Tulips
Tulips
🌷 🌷 🌷

Clematis viticella ‘Purpurea Plena Elegans”

Cercidophyllum japonicum - Candyfloss tree.

Paeony rockii

Nice to see all the mentions of erigeron, which is something I hadn't come across until I went to stay in the south coast of England a few years ago and was fascinated by this pretty daisy-like flower that seemed happy to sprout from cracks in the concrete. I haven't managed to persuade it to go feral in my own garden yet.

Rose - St Ethelburga
Cosmos - dazzler
Geum - queen of orange

I've been taking cuttings from mine as I'd like it all over the garden. It's lovely

Daffodils, alliums and echinacea

And Californian poppies.

Salvia Caradonna - the most beautiful deep purple, flowers for ages, bees love it.
Cranesbill (geraniums) - so many different types and colours, some are really useful for ground cover on difficult spots (dry shade) and some (rozanne) flower for absolutely months. And bees love them.
Nepeta. Or sweet peas. Or roses. God I don't know 🤣

It's so difficult to pick just three!

We'd planted 60 David Austin roses in the half acre garden of the house we sold last year. It was a wrench having to leave them behind. Some were in large planters so we were able to bring these to our much smaller (courtyard) garden and of those, my favourite is either Morning Mist or Fighting Temeraire.

Then, I think persicaria (probably bistorta superba) and iris sibirica (although I couldn't choose a particular type).

Honorable mentions to verbena bonariensis, allium (current favourite is mount everest) and Japanese anemone (honorine jobert).

Also, I've discovered a new found love of tulips this spring. When we completed on the purchase of our seaside cottage in September, the paved garden looked so sad and grey compared to the green space we'd left. I was determined to have masses of colour come spring, so went a bit mad and ordered 180 tulip bulbs which I planted in large pots. Really pleased I did now as they look amazing!

Spider plants - I have these all over the house! They are virtually impossible to kill, and I never get tired of seeing them sprout their little baby plants 🥰

Gerberas - I just love them, they make me happy to look at. Just a super big, colourful daisy. I also had them in my wedding bouquet.

Buddleia - they smell nice, look pretty, you can't really kill them, and the abundance of butterflies and bees on them makes my heart happy. ♥️ 🦋 🐝