My Top 6 Value Flowers

Flowers with the X-Factor

Some flowers and plants just keep on giving and I wanted to share the stars of my garden this year. 

Nemesia

We always buy a few Nemesia plants in May and they flower all the way through until October in pots dotted around our patio area.    Six months of flowering makes these little flowers a garden star in my book and there are loads of different pretty coloured varieties. 

Cosmos

Our garden is still full of flowering Cosmos and they will probably go on flowering through into October.  In addition to being long flowering and having pretty feathery foliage, Cosmos appear to be completely undesirable to slugs and snails, which is a Brucey Bonus!  You can pick up a packet of Cosmos seeds for less than £2 although I have actually found them for 25p a packet in Lidl.  They are stupidly easy to grow and they come in dazzling white and bright jewel like colours.  

Globe Artichoke

Yes, I know these are not strictly flowers but in my garden they sit in the flower bed and not the vegetable garden.  They are tall with elegant almost triffid like globes and one plant can generate a lot of globes after a couple of years.  I love the structural beauty that they add to the flower border and to be honest I find that they have greater value as flowers than as food for me. 

 Leave the globes to flower and go to seed and the bees will have a field day; ours were full of  pollen drunk bees in late summer.

Lavender

It was wonderful to sit in the garden this summer and watch the bees busily hopping from one Lavender flower head to another.  The garden was filled with bees and butterflies and the Lavender is a star attraction.

Sweet Peas

These performed well this year and are easily grown from seed in either autumn or spring.  They smell divine, are beautiful cut flowers and cheap to grow, so what's not to love about them?

Sunflowers

As I look out of my bathroom window I am greeted with the sight of some tall sunflowers smiling up at me.  There are so many varieties of sunflower; giant ones, small ones, bushy ones, red ones, white ones and every shade of yellow imaginable.  They are dead easy to grow and you can collect the seeds from flower heads and use again next year.  Also great for bringing bees into your garden and they make great cut flowers.

So, next year when you are making plans for your garden, pick up some seeds (remember cheap seeds from Lidl!) and bring the bees into your garden.

Galx