What plants are your best "doers" in your garden?

Plants that do well in mine are early flowering or deep rooted, we have sandy soil, all shallow rooted summer plants struggle, even with watering

I've lost some more unusual penstemons but the pink ones just keep going (and spreading).

No idea what Gaura are, will have a Google.

The penstemons which have worked best for me are Garnet and White Bedder.

Good long flowering plants in my garden are Verbena bonariensis. It's been flowering since may, very tall and doesn't need staking. Lovely to plant anywhere in the border as it's ethereal nature means you can see through it to other plants. Freely self seeds.

Erysimum 'Bowles Mauve'. Just flowers on and on with a little dead heading.

Nepeta 'Walkers Low'. Flowered from April to late July when I cut it back hard and now it's flowering again as well as it did the first time. Always covered with bees during the day and moths in the evening.

Should have said, I garden on clay soil which I've improved hugely with home made compost. The garden is sunny all day long.

Germanshepherdsmum

The penstemons which have worked best for me are Garnet and White Bedder.

I had a very pretty one called Apple Blossom but it seems to have disappeared this year.

That garden bed really needs a good sort out but I can't do it at the moment apart from a bit of satisfying deadheading.

Yesterday I bought Hydrangea Pinky Promise and I've planted it this morning in my Wine Corner to replace a leggy lavender that I'd had for years. It has conical flower heads that are supposed to change from white to pale pink to deep pink through July, August and September. Fingers crossed!

The word leggy seems to pop up in lots of my posts - I do maintain the shrubs, honest, but some years circumstances have meant that I've missed pruning one or two and they got out of control very quickly! I do all the gardening, including the veg beds, myself. OH's only garden job is to mow the lawn, which he enjoys and I hate!

My hydrangeas have really suffered this year, despite watering. Such a shame. The only one not to have suffered is in a very shady spot.

Callistemon21 Penstemon Apple Blossom is an absolutely beauty!

Photo of Wine Corner - the new hydrangea is on the right. The roots are shaded but this little corner gets the mid/late afternoon sun. I hope I can keep it going Germanshepherdsmum as it's the first hydrangea I have planted.

Please excuse the state of the lawn!!!

We saw a hydrangea like that at the garden centre the other week, they're lovely.
But we couldn't think of a suitable space for it.

It's very pretty Alice. I have one like that and the changing colours as the flowers age are lovely. It should be ok with those trees around it. It was definitely the heat which spoiled mine this year rather than lack of water - especially the strong breeze at the same time (we live near the coast) which scorched the flowers. Let's hope for better luck next year!

Talking of leggy, I Chelsea chopped some of my sedum Autumn Joy as an experiment, and left the rest. The jury is out on whether it was the right thing to do, the chopped part will be out a couple of weeks later, but the flowers will be much smaller. I might chop a few whole plants in different parts of the garden next year just to prolong the season.

There are big rocks on the side of my daughters detached house I am living in I added some pebbles made a rockery growing alpines including thyme seven plants altogether.

Quite pleased with it.

Just sprinkled wild flower seed masses of wild flowers on unfertilised soil

Hydrangeas are very easy to propagate. Take a non flowering stem, about 10 cms. Remove all but the top leaves, then either put in a jar of water, or preferably dip in rooting powder and plant in a small pot of damp, 50% compost 50% grit. Keep in a sheltered place, cold frame or greenhouse.
Next spring there should be new leaves appearing, when roots appear at the bottom, pot on to a larger pot.
It’s quite a slow process at first, but very satisfying to see your own plants growing and flowering.

Lovely planting ideas Grany. Watch the thyme, mine spreads everywhere, swamping the other plants.

My Calendulas have done well this year.

MrsKen33

We seem to have the ideal conditions for camellias and hydrangeas, so we have lots of those. Also several trees which will need sorting in a while.

We are definitely on limey soil- and if there is one thing I've learnt over my 50+ years of gardening, it to go with plants suited for your conditions. Trying to fight it always ends in tears and disappointment. I have 2 hydrangeas in pots, and that is it.

Japanese anemones

Hypericum: good news for me ,AskAlice. I got two of these for my birthday this month.

As everyone predicts our summers will get hotter and drier, I have this week been listing those plants that have coped well and those that have really struggled. My phlox have not liked it, neither have gaura’s, hebe’s and cosmos. Rudbeckia’s, penstemon and all the daisy family have thrived. Through the winter I will be planning what will have the best chance of surviving. Our gardening club is planning a trip to Beth Chatto’s gravel garden to get ideas. I live right in the centre of England ( Beds, Bucks border) and we are really suffering with drought conditions.i

In our garden the plants that are the best doers are the ones that roe and red deer don't eat, so mainly ones that do/did well on ancient pasture (deer are browsers rather than grazers, which makes a difference). Also ferns. Trees do pretty well. When we are too old and decrepit to mow and pull up gazillions of downy birch, ash, sycamore, holly and other tree seedlings we will gradually be hemmed in by a forest.