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: I was told it by Kim Hurst from the Cottage Herbery at the Malvern Spring Show last year (the 2009 show, by the way, runs from 7-10 May; I hope to see you there) . Those of you sensible enough not to let mint run loose in your flower beds will have

and kept below their normal height. They're not much good if you're looking for flowers, but for sheer well-cut elegance you can't really go wrong. You know the sort of thing: yew hedges with razor edges, parasols of pleached lime and frost-dusted box

, but then she also grew a lot of other things universally regarded as supremely tasteful and fashionable. Dianthus make a very charming edging plant with lots of colour (provided you like pink) and most of them are fabulously scented. If you don't like pink

winter.Actaea 'James Compton' - these used to be called cimicifugas. Tall and very, very elegant. 'James Compton' has dark purplish leaves as well.Zauschenaria californica - any plant whose name begins with Z has a special spot in my heart. A great edging

first moved here we found a clump of snowdrops just on the edge of the garden, by the woods. Over the years we have split and moved them, so that all of the wilder parts of the garden have little clumps showing their heads.However, I have absolutely

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

in clean water so probably still a bit risky!A great plant for the edge of a woodland or a large border although it does tend to seed itself in inappropriate places. The American Constitution was written in ink made from the berries of Pokeweed.

I've found an interesting artefact, a remnant of a time long gone. Lurking in a cupboard I discovered an old album of cigarette cards assembled by my father in 1939. For those younger readers of this illustrious blog I will explain

in the ground (on a south-facing wall) didn't even think about flowering until late July, but the foliage still looks lush and green as we edge into autumn. There may be a moral behind this story, but I'm dashed if I know what it is. It all depends whether you

: close to the wild dahlia (which grows in Mexico where it scrambles around the edges of jungles and has tiny mauve flowers) and much taller and more sophisticated than her flashier cousins.Dahlias are pretty trouble-free, although because the flowers