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about eryngiums in the ‘We love’ pages of the July 2011 edition. I would like, if I may, to expand on that a bit and introduce you to a few more.I love eryngiums: they are about the only plants that manage to be architectural, delicate, pretty

chrysanths. They seem to have slipped out of fashion over here. Not so in America.I was fortunate enough to be rumbling around New York a couple of weeks ago. The sun was glorious and the glimpses of azure blue sky amidst the skyscrapers were awe inspiring

woad body paint terrorising Romans. The plant from which this comes is Isatis tinctoria and, oddly, it is not even faintly blue, but very yellow.I was reminded of this by a quick preview visit to Jekka McVicar's stand at this year's Chelsea Flower Show

, indeed, an extraordinarily fine plant (I have it self seeding in the gravel outside my office). Pretty well everybody also knows about Verbena bonariensis which is one of the finest herbaceous plants ever invented: it flowers for ages (from about July

iris). The flowers vary in colour from pale blue to deep violet, with yellow-spotted splashes down each petal.Some of them share names with the engines of Rev. Wilbert Awdry, so we have I. reticulata 'Edward' and I. reticulata 'Gordon' although, sadly

this tree will have two sorts of berries: blue-black sloes and deep red haws.It is an example of a 'husband and wife tree'. This is quite a well-documented phenomenon, which can occur when trees are planted as whips, very close together, and grow up entwined

for the one with the AGM sticker. But back to my confusing list of alliums, I notice that there are fifteen AGM plants. To make your job of choosing them even simpler, here are my top five:Allium caeruleum: a late-flowering, small-headed blue variety. Height 0

.Semiarundinaria yashadake 'Kimmei' – lots and lots of thin yellow canes with narrow green stripes. 2.5m highThe following are clump-formers:Thamnocalamus crassinoides 'Merlyn' - graceful 4m-high, blue-stemmed plant with tiny leaves. Perfect for the smaller garden