Which plant in your garden have you found to be the most useful?

previous pic was my DGD hiding

Do bulbs not count as perennials, I just love my daffs and tulips

I live in North Yorkshire and have horrible clay 'soil', so although I love gardening it isn't always easy! Bulbs and most lavenders I've grown have a habit of rotting over winter if it's cold, wet (or both!) but plants that come back each year and look good are perennial geraniums, herbs like rosemary, sage and thyme survive well and are useful for cooking plus have nice flowers.

Last year I got some Geums, and they survived the winter and are looking marvellous.

I love my Sea Holly (erignium I think it's called?) bought because my daughter's called Holly but it comes back year after year and has a beautiful blue colour.

Astilbies and flag irises do well in a border with clay soil that's either dry and baked or waterlogged (frogs/toads jump out at me when I'm attempting to weed!).

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I love my heucheras and my honey spurge. Oh and my herbs!

A blue hellebore?? That's interesting, I've never seen a blue one. What variety is it?

Violas which I planted in March and will continue to bloom through to first frost and a hosta which needs no attention and pops up year after year.

The plants that need least attention in my garden are Hellebores. They seed themselves with great abandon - pink and white ones, and I've recently acquired a couple of blue ones.

Agree about perennial wallflowers, we have purple one that was in flower at the end of August when we moved to this house, went on until November. It then came into flower in February and looks as if it's going to flower all summer

I have various penstemons and they flower all summer in a variety of colours, definitely my favourite after my roses.

Mimulus Mine have spread and appearing all over this year
I love sweet pea's

Penstemon, blue salvia, lavender and dark leaved dahlias.flower from now till September and then the Japanese anemones. I'm no gardener, but I do like full borders. Even I can't kill these plants....and the dahlias have come back for the last several years without lifting them in the winter. And heucheras and sedums, love them all.

The geranium endressii (Wargrave pink) flowers from late May until the end of the year in my garden. Nothing affects it, slugs and snails ignore it, as do greenfly and fungal problems. It can be propagated from tiny sections of root so you can bulk it up quickly and once settled it seeds happily. It makes excellent groundcover and is wonderful covering the bare ground around roses.

I thought my pyracantha were the most useful - all year round either berries or flowers or fresh green leaves and the thorns kept the badgers and foxes out of my small garden. Then, for the first time, a thug of a gull found them and took all the berries over two days. I hope it got a stomach ache.

My roses give the most pleasure. The flowering season can be extended by mixing the flowering periods or getting continuous flowering breeds, not the same as repeat flowering. They don't take much looking after, a good feed in March and July - chicken poo pellets are as good as expensive rose feed. Prune in late Autumn if your garden is windy so the roots aren't too damaged, or spring if you are sheltered. You can deadhead when needed, or, as I do, instead of just cutting off the dead flower, cut the stem down to an emerging new growth. Prune as you go!
Roses are very forgiving. My best ones have been bought as half dead sale items at garden centres for next to nothing and nursed back to life. I don't go to expensive and chic garden centres. I have never managed to propagate a rose but I don't have a greenhouse.
Only sweet peas have as good a fragrance and are as beautiful as roses but are much more work. I think most cottage garden plants are a lot of work to look really nice and healthy - more than I want to give.

granjura we stayed on Av. Rodrigues de Freitas, 427, 4000-423. Quite close to the Sao Bento train station. (The very ornate one). It's not a huge city so you can just wander round looking at the sites as you see them. The view from the bridge at night, with all the lights reflecting on the water, is beautiful.

Yes. I get love-in-a-mist popping up everywhere merlot. So pretty.

ja yes, I think that is Wargrave. Although there are some other pink ones so can't say for sure. My Wargrave out-thugged my Johnsons Blue. But it very pretty.

Oh yes! Cosmos! I get garden ready plugs every year. Really useful.

This is a really exciting thread. It's making me want to go and buy more plants.

#weloveourgardens

janeainsworth thanks for the advice. Will need to check the soil.

I'm another big heuchera fan; colour all through the winter and now they are looking fabulous with new leaves and flowers. A friend bought me "Southern Comfort" for my birthday last year which I have in a pot on the patio and the afternoon sun shines through it - gorgeous.

Nigella (Love-in-a-Mist) seeds itself freely in my garden. Such a pretty flower. It was my mother's favourite so I would add it to bunches I'd cut for her when she was in a nursing home.

When my daughters were 5 and 6 they gave me a tiny pot of ivy for Mothers Day.That was 33 years ago.
Since then I have moved house 5 times,and each time I dig up a piece of the ivy and replant it in my new garden.....it is like bringing the children with me.
I dread losing that plant.

Any evergreen is useful,as they guarantee winter foliage.

On the subject of geraniums, I always hankered after Johnson's Blue and my sister gave me a clump from her garden. She said if I cut it back after the first flush of flowers, it would flower again, but I could never get it to do this. A very handsome plant, but also needs control.

I like cosmos, but after just one sowing two years ago, it got to be a real nuiscance, self seeding all over the place. This year, I set out to eradicate it completely, but still have seedlings coming through and, in truth, I can't bring myself to get rid of any more. They are very pretty when in flower and obviously determined that they will be part of my planting scheme (such as it is) so who am I to argue?

Cosmos. Such a friendly cheery little plant that flowers much of the summer and can be planted in odd gaps that perennials have left.

Penstemons. They flower for such a long period & come in such lovely colours.
Best bargain is a Clematis I bought for 50p towards the end of the day in Epsom Market 12 years ago.It looked a bit sad & I felt sorry for it. It flowers from now until Autumn & is the first bit of colour in the border outside the back door when spring bulbs finish. It has more than repaid me & I look forward to it's first flower every year.I think it was called Pope Pius 9th.It has just started flowering this year. Lovley.

Ooh Dont think I have Wargrave It looks a different colour to.mine