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The Victorians knew their plants, and the gorgeous hot water plant, achimene, was one of their favourites. Who can resist the charms of this little beauty, a relative of the African violet and Cape primrose. I'm a great fan of the gesneriad family

This is prime iris season: a few weeks when these hugely flamboyant flowers come into their own. I grow two different sorts of iris in my garden: the Siberian iris and the bearded iris. Siberian irises are smaller flowered, have thinner leaves

!) Growing so easily from seed makes me wonder why I've never spotted it in any seed catalogues before, but there it is in both the Chiltern Seeds and Thompson & Morgan catalogues - a packet containing 150 seeds costs less than a third of the price I paid