My desert island plants

The purpose of this blog is to share my discoveries of recent varieties of plants which help provide a "Bold and Brilliant Garden".  I thought one way of doing this would be to list my five top favourite plants.  Only one of them is mentioned in Sarah Raven's great book The Bold and Brilliant Garden.  The rest have emerged onto the market since the book was published in 1999.  What these plants have in common for me, apart from their all-round excellence, is that I have several of each of them, despite the smallness of my garden. 

1. ROSA 'WARM WELCOME'

This is a climbing rose which is recommended in Sarah Raven's book.  It has not been improved upon!

It has small orange flowers.  These are beautiful single flowers in a clear, definite orange.  They are lightly scented: I can detect the scent when the plants are flowering well.

And they DO flower well, for ages.   There are some flowers on the plants most of the time.  They are a joy in late autumn or winter when there is little else, and during the flowering peaks(there are several) in the summer they look spectacular.

It is also one of my healthiest roses, rarely suffering from blackspot and a stranger to mildew. 

Lovely orange flowers and loads of them from Rosa 'Warm Welcome

2. EUCOMIS COMOSA SPARKLING BURGUNDY'

This plant looks so exotic that it is a wonder that it grows in Britain.  In fact it thrives and reproduces with ease.  (In winter it forms a large bulb below ground which you can split to produce more plants.)

The Bold and Brilliant Garden isn't just about exuberant flowers and flower-colour.  It is also about fabulous foliage to complement the flowers.   This provides exotic burgundy foliage in smart straps for months on end.  

Here you can see it strutting its stuff with two of my other desert island plants behind - Euonymus Japonicus 'Extase' and Alstroemeria 'Indian Summer'.  They go well together.   Another trick is to plant the eucomis with Allium Globemaster, which in my experience is the best allium.  The alliums go over just as the eucomis is coming up.

3. ARUM ITALICUM subsp. ITALICUM GOOD MARKED FORM

This is another foliage choice but an unusual one perhaps, because it starts to delight me in the autumn, looks good in winter and peaks in April/May.  Then it goes dormant until the next September.

In short, it looks great during the winter months.  I rejoice in having two large pots of it on either side of my French windows so they are my first-and-foremost plant for half the year.  This plant gives me great pleasure in deepest winter.  I got mine from Cotswold Garden Flowers.  Once you have it, you can make yourself more by harvesting and planting the orange berries (watch out, they are poisonous).

Arum peaking in May, with Rosa 'Warm Welcome' above it.

4. EUONYMUS JAPONICUS 'EXTASE'

This evergreen, or should I say ever-yellow, small shrub often makes me ponder the difference between flowers and really bright foliage.  They are as good as each other!  But with evergreen foliage the advantage is that it looks good all year round.  So I get the equivalent of bright yellow daisies but year-long. 

I have several, some in pots and some in the ground.  For me they grow about 70cm tall and are great for providing structure. In one bed, they act as support for my older varieties of alstroemeria which tend to flop, a very useful role.

Euonymus 'Extase' with Hemerocallis 'Franz Hals'

5. ALSTROEMERIA 'INDIAN SUMMER'

I have already sung the praises of this amazing plant in my article on Alstroemeria.  It provides me with orange flowers and dark foliage for months on end, being much more continuous than varieties of alstroemeria that were bred earlier.  This plant is a breeding triumph.