Cottage favourites

Cottage-garden style relies on a group of signature perennial plants to weave among roses, shrubs and small fruit trees, adding colour and character at the height of summer. Old favourites include…

Digitalis purpurea, common foxgloves, are tall self-seeding biennials with stately spikes of mainly pink or purple flowers. There’s also a lovely white form. Easy-going, it copes in shade as well as sun. TIP: Trimming back the flower stems will encourage fresh leafy growth.

With their outstanding flower power, variety and vitality, clematis add both colour and height when trained up obelisks or wigwams amid informal planting. Aim to plant it with the roots in shade and flowers in the sun.

TIP: Cover the base of the plant with crocks, to keep the roots cool.

Drumstick alliums make most impact planted in groups and grown through ground-cover plants that support the stems, hiding the dying leaves. It’s best to plant them dotted around in borders, in groups of seven bulbs upwards. TIP: Leave the seed heads after flowering to add structure.

Demanding but gorgeous, these lofty beauties add drama and height, lording it over other summer flowers, with tall spikes bearing numerous single or double flowers. Make them the centrepiece in beds or borders.

TIP: Prepare a support for tall varieties when only knee-high.

Also known as columbine or granny’s bonnet, this old favourite quickly settles in dense clumps of flowers in jewel-like colours on long stems. It likes partial shade and moist soil.

TIP: Disperse seed from the dried seed heads to promote new plants.

Hardy geraniums are easy-going, groundcover plants that stifle weeds. There are varieties to suit every garden situation from sunny to shady, damp to dry. Plant it anywhere needing body, ground cover and flowers.

TIP: In early July, after flowering, cut back to promote new foliage.

Herbaceous peonies add lush foliage as well as larger-than-life blooms, often fragrant and with clusters of ruffled petals in pink, red, gold or white. Plant them as accents equally spaced along a border. TIP: The handsome foliage can be useful for hiding the bare lower stems of roses.

Elegant lupins impress when grown in bold swathes, or blended with other perennials that do not compete with their spikes, and conceal supports. They are ideally placed in the middle of borders.

TIP: Deter slugs from new foliage with copper rings (harrod horticultural.com).