The couple’s favourite plants

Persicaria microcephala ‘Red Dragon’

This persicaria, grown for its silver and green-marked, burgundy foliage, needs good light to colour up. Use it with mauves and silvers.

Hemerocallis ‘Stafford’

This well-known hemerocallis, raised in 1959, produces brick-red flowers. Each petal has a fine middle line and there’s a yellow throat, so it mixes in easily with other colours and never looks sombre.

Rose ‘Tuscany Superb’

The soil’s too sandy for most roses, but gallica roses do well here. The highly scented magenta flowers are framed by bright-green, matt foliage. Flowers gloriously in summer.

Sweet pea ‘Cupani’

This is the original sweet pea introduced from Sicily in 1699 by the monk Francis Cupani. The small, highly fragrant flowers are a mixture of blue-purple and magenta. Sweet peas are a favourite for cutting.

Papaver somniferum ( opium poppy)

I probably got the seeds from the Hardy Plant Society seed swap. It pops up randomly and visitors love it. Self seeders are very welcome here.

Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’

This has green, sword-shaped leaves and tomato-red flowers in July. It’s used in Ron’s exotic bed full of hot colours, along with Sisyrinchium striatum, commonly called ‘Aunt May’.