Favourite Plants You Wouldn't Be Without

Do you have a plant you wouldn’t be without in the garden?

My mother in law loves poppies and much to her husband’s irritation will happily let them self-set all over the vegetable garden. They come and go in a flash of purple and soon die back so don’t really get in the way. 

Julie loves her marigolds but this year for some reason none of the seeds that fell from last year’s plants germinated. The garden does lack that rich orange colour I must admit.  We tend to go more for the annuals for a splash of colour and have bulbs in the front garden for early colour in spring.

Favourite Plants

My favourites seem to change often and this year my plant of choice would be the chamomile, mainly because it’s given me a revenue stream. It is the most relaxing plant I have ever dealt with because of the fragrance and I am at peace when putting the plantlets into envelopes to post. Even weeding out the rogue nasturtiums and chickweed in between the plants is a meditative experience. 

These are the types of plants I would dig up or divide and take with me if I moved again. I think that is an indicator that the plants mean something to you. I would take herb cuttings I think and also a few bay tree cuttings to grow on. 

There are plenty of lists for plants you shouldn’t be without in the garden. A lot of them concentrate on attracting bees and other beneficial insects. So many in fact they are split into the different seasons. In spring you might like to see wallflowers, cyclamen, daffodils, tulips pansies and violets. The summer could give you alliums, clematis, bellflowers and geraniums. Autumn gives us asters, red hot pokers, penstemons and smoke bushes and there’s colour in winter too. Winter aconites, dogwood, hazel, skimmia and cotoneaster all give lovely shows.  

It all depends on personal choice of course and some plants will be on the favourite list because they hold a reminder of something, evoking memories in much the same way that music does a smell can take you back to a happy place. Useful plants are good to take with you into a new garden too. Bamboo for poles, comfy for fertilizer all come in useful and can save you money in the annual upkeep for the garden.

What’s your Favourite?

I couldn’t let this opportunity go by without asking you which plant you would always have in the garden or take with you when you move. 

Here are some of your replies:

Kelly - Peonies! They smell heavenly and remind me of my childhood.

Merry -Old roses for their delightful smell. 

Andrea- Peonies they remind me of my grandma. Actually have some growing that were taken from roots of her plant. They are over 60 years old. 

Tracy- Tulips of all colours but especially the black are favourite flowers. 

Karen- I love daylilies. I always plant sunflowers, they are so cheerful looking and my bird and I love the seeds. 

Nikki- I live in Portugal and it's really dry here, so my favourite plants are globe artichokes as you can eat them, they are really beautiful and quite drought resistant. 

Laurie- Hydrangeas are profuse bloomers with beautiful green foliage...a must have in my garden.

Heather- Chinese lanterns. Reminds me of my grandmother's house when I was growing up.

Trudy- Clematis! My favourite is the old fashioned Jackmanii. I love the profusion of purple blooms! I planted one every time I moved to a new location. There is a trail of clematis vines behind me in several different gardens!

Bob- Lavender, we distil our own oils. 

Janet- Gardenia... my grandparents had one outside of EVERY window in their house.

Rebecca- Old favourite peas....my dearly departed dad would not let my mum go to the hospital and give birth to me until all the peas were shelled.

Frances- Hydrangeas are my favourite flowers. They take me back home to my Grandmas farm.

Looking around my garden I realise that a lot of plants we took for granted haven’t made the journey with us from older gardens. We have lost a lot of herbs and shrubs as well as some lovely flowers such as the large daisies. Our relations still have some that we gave them years ago so it looks like we need to make a list of plants we want to get back and go visiting some friends where the plants still flourish.