Plant of the month - March

Hyacinth 'Delft Blue'

I had always thought of hyacinths as the sort of flower your grandma grows. That is, until I saw them in the late great Christopher Lloyd's border at Great Dixter. As regular readers will know, I'm a big fan of Mr Lloyd's, so anything that's good enough for him is good enough for me. When I went, he had 'King of the Blues' in his Long Border, and it truly zinged out at you from among the spring flowers - not gaudy, as some over-bred primroses are, for example, but just pure, joyous blue.

I couldn't find 'King of the Blues' so had to opt for 'Delft Blue' - a more commonly-grown type but nonetheless superb for that. At this time of year its uncompromising china blue stands up beautifully to the butter-yellow daffodils all around it - this is not a wishy-washy plant, and all the better for it. You can force them to grow indoors - the usual excuse is to enjoy the scent at close quarters, but to be honest I find it overwhelming and a little sickly in the house. Far better to have it scattered on the wind so you catch a little puff of it as you pass by - one of those utterly blissful moments that gardening is all about. It seems grandma knew a trick or two after all.

Plant of the month - February

Libertia peregrinans



I discovered this plant through Christopher Lloyd, who writes about it in his book, "Succession Planting for Adventurous Gardeners" - something of a bible of mine. Anyway, as so often with new (to me, anyway) plants Lloyd suggests, it's quickly become a firm favourite of mine.

It's what they call a good do-er - rarely needs any particular TLC, tough as anything, evergreen - or should that be evergold in this case? - and just does its stuff all year round. It's an excellent plant for structure - I've got it planted between a Spiraea japonica "Gold Mound" and a Pinus mugo, where it retreats into the background a bit in summer and then at this time of the year (and indeed for most of the winter) really shines out. It has a lovely, warm burnished bronzey-gold colour that glows in low sunshine and makes those sword-like leaves shoot up, shining, from the surrounding plants.

Mine is still a young plant, but I'm hoping if it's happy it'll form a nice beefy clump in time. It almost seems like an afterthought, but it does also have pretty iris-like white flowers later in spring, too.