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to harvest in just 15 days, after the first cotyledon leaves have emerged. They may be grown all year round, have an intense flavour, and are easy to grow. 'Bright and Spicy' micro greens mix includes pak choi and red amaranth leaves.Micro greens salad

. In terms of value, a single perennial could cost you, say, £5.00 to buy, but you could pick up a packet of Godetia Dwarf Mixed flower seed for just £1.39, and grow 1,000 plants! Yes, 1,000 seeds in a packet, and other hardy annuals offer similar great value

and protecting from strong sun and wind. (Keep late-summer cuttings in a cold frame, to plant out the following spring).Italian artichokes are another 'grow-your-own' plant that looks superb in a mixed border. 'Violetto' has a gorgeous purplish tint, which

use this technique to grow flowering perennials and biennials as well as hardy annuals to brighten up you beds and borders. Sow into weed-free soil that has been dug, forked and raked to create a fine surface structure or 'tilth'. SeedsArea of prepared

scabious echoes its purple accents from mid- to late-summer. Above these plants arch the leaves of the grasses, gently swaying in a summer breeze.March - April June - September20 minutesSedge, Carex buchananiiBlue fescue, Festuca glauca x2Scabious x2Thrift

then run the mower up and down to collect them (thanks by the way, to my son Luke, 11, for taking the photo). The great thing about using a mower rather than simply raking them up is that they get chopped up in the process. I remember the late Geoff

and work well as part of a mixed border - I have a lovely white iris called Iris sibirica 'Snow Queen' and a blue one called 'Emperor'.These are fine, but they pale into insignificance compared to the huge, complicated flowers of their bearded cousins. Each

displays and mixed borders, that conifers don't feature more highly on the shopping list. After all, they deliver on so many counts, and provide striking structural building blocks in any garden.Perhaps their reputation for growing too large puts people off

lessoniana (formerly Stipa arundinacea). From autumn through to spring, its foliage takes on spectacular red, orange and yellow tints, making it an essential grass for mixed borders.Amenanthele lessonianaPlants don't get much more architectural than

of the plant). They are not really the right choice for a small garden or a tidy gardener. Pachymorphs form a clump (although the clump will, obviously increase in time) which makes them perfect as big specimen plants in lawns or as part of a mixed border