A true cottage garden staple, salvias (with our favourite variety being Caradonna) flower for months on end, attract bees in abundance, and their rich purple-blue spires add beautiful structure amongst softer blooms. Salvias are super low maintenance too; providing months of blooms with very little effort on your part!

The blooming of our alliums has become one of the things we look forward to most in the month of May. Alliums bring striking architectural interest to our herbaceous border, and their globe-shaped blooms create a wonderful contrast against softer cottage garden planting. Purple sensations are our favourite classic variety of allium, but we also love the summer flowering varieties, which extend the allium season through to August.

Lupins are one of the joys of early summer, producing towering flower spikes in a variety of colours that instantly make borders feel full and abundant. While lupins usually flower from late May to early June, promptly deadheading any spent flowers can extend their flowering season into July.

Hydrangeas provide generous, cloud-like blooms that brighten late summer, offering beautiful architectural interest just as many other perennials begin to fade. There are so many varieties of hydrangea to choose from, with the classic white Annabelle being a favourite of ours. We also love climbing hydrangeas, which are perfect for brightening a partially shady fence or wall.

Hardy geraniums are incredibly dependable, filling gaps in your borders with mounds of foliage and months of cheerful flowers while helping to suppress weeds. If anything, you’ll struggle with your geraniums crowding out less vigarous plants. Chop your geraniums back hard whenever you feel that they’re taking over, and they’ll reward you with even more blooms.

Nothing captures the romance of an English garden quite like roses, with their exquisite fragrance, timeless beauty and repeat flowering throughout summer. Our favourite varieties are all David Austin roses, with Vanessa Bell and Generous Gardener being two of our staples.

One of Josie’s absolute favourites, Anemone Honorine, a Japanese Anemone is a star of the late summer to early autumn garden, bringing elegant blooms and fresh colour when the border is beginning to look more autumnal.

Astrantia is an underrated perennial which comes in a few colours; white, pink, claret and purple. Astrantia has an understated elegance, with intricate pincushion flowers that weave beautifully through borders and thrive even in shadier corners.

Verbena Bonariensis is our favourite of the many verbena varieties, as it adds effortless height and movement to our main border, with delicate purple flowers that the butterflies in particular absolutely adore. If you love the look of Verbena Bonariensis, but you’d like something a little more compact, go for Verbena Lollipop which is almost identical to Bonariensis, just much shorter!

Erigeron Karvinskianus softens the edge of our borders with hundreds of delicate daisy-like pink and white flowers, creating the prettiest, most relaxed cottage garden feel. Erigeron is also perfectly happy in poor soil and even gravel, and so it can also be used to line pathways and driveways.