ATMOSPHERIC FILLERS

These mounding, loose shrubby plants are the backdrop of a Mediterranean garden, giving it tone and presence. Choose two or three and repeat them to create a nice, undulating rhythm.

 Rosemary Go for a prostrate form if you want it to hang over a pot, or ‘Miss Jessopp’s Upright’ for the border, where it will soon grow into a handsome clump, with deep green leaves and blue spring flowers.

 Lavender ‘Hidcote’ is a wonderful compact, purple-flowered variety. French lavender, with flowers that look like bunny ears, is particularly charming in pots.

 Rock rose Cistus is a wonderful group of plants with silvery leaves and large papery flowers. Each flower lasts a day, but there are so many of them, this won’t matter. The compact ‘Sunset’ is particularly stunning, with pink flowers that have an iridescent orange centre, like a little light. Or go for corbariensis if you want a big clump of yellow and white blooms.

 Cotton lavender Santolina is a Mediterranean classic; a small shrub

with silvery leaves and bright yellow pom-pom flowers in summer. Add the ‘Primrose Gem’ variety for fresh green leaves that make a nice contrast.

THEN ADD THE FLOWERS...

Gauzy flowers on delicate stems bring romance to the Med garden. Pop these in between the filler plants so they can peep above them airily.  Gaura Such a romantic plant, clouds of pink and white flowers like butterflies appear above this woody shrub (Gaura lindheimeri) in late summer and way into autumn.

 Annual poppy Sow seeds once and these poppies should return again and again. They may pop up in your gravel, too, where you can leave them to do their thing. ‘Lauren’s Grape’ is a plummy one and the shorter Californian poppy a searing shade of orange.