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the dahlia was persona non grata in our gardens and was banished to the vegetable garden, where it was grown purely as a cut flower or for competitions. Dahlias were they garden equivalent of battery hens. Now they range happily through our borders bringing

, with regular deadheading, keep going until the autumn. Propagation is also quite simple: take cuttings from the non-flowering shoots in the summer.I haven't even started on alpine and annual varieties but must mention D. carthusianorum - a really good perennial

, flowers June/July.Allium moly 'Jeannine': double stemmed with yellow flowers. Height 0.5m, flowers May/June.Allium unifolium: a pink flowered variety, shortish (25cm) but good for cutting. Height 0.5m, flowers May/June.

mass of arching stems and finely cut leaves. The flowers are pretty dangling green catkins - not at all obvious.Fourth is Cephalaria dipsacoides which has very tall slender stems capped with pale yellow, button flowers - like a giant scabious.My fifth

Many years ago when I was a landscaper in London, I had a regular client who had a tiny garden in Wandsworth. It was literally one flower bed, a small shed and a wall topped by a chain link fence.The reason we had to keep returning was because

At this time of year hedgerows bristle with elderflowers. Elder (Sambucus nigra) is a native tree with white flowers in midsummer and bunches of small black berries in autumn. It is a bit of a weed but, like many weeds, it has both a purpose

I'm sitting on a train as I write this, something I do more frequently than I used to, in an effort to cut back on the number of miles I drive each year. One of the best things about taking the train is being able to gaze, semi-comatose, through

Manor is managed by cutting it for hay in summer and then it is grazed by sheep through the autumn. The haymaking scatters seed from all the flowers. The sheep then tread the seed into the ground without allowing the grass to get long enough to interfere

as cut flowers). I saw them at the base of street trees, gleefully mixed in with bright chrysanthemums and lipstick-pink cyclamen. Not  a very conventional mixture but certainly striking.There are variations: this one has a good solid evergreen box edge

. To revive the plant remove it from the pot, cut it in half and turn the outside edges so that they face inwards then replant in the pot with a bit of fresh compost. So simple.The general rule is that early-flowering plants should be divided in the autumn