Chives (Allium schoenoprasum) Their mild onion-flavoured leaves are perfect chopped up in salad or added to sour cream to make a great accompaniment to jacket potatoes or barbecued meats. But the balls of purple flowers that chives produce also provide some welcome colour to the herb garden or the front of the border.

They can be sown indoors all year round in a greenhouse or on a windowsill, or outdoors in March and April. Seeds should be sprinkled evenly over the surface of compost or vermiculite in small pots or trays and covered thinly. The soil needs to be kept moist.

Whole potfuls can be planted out in borders or containers when all danger of frost has passed. Keep them well watered in sun or partial shade and cut leaves as required.

They are perennial evergreens and their bulbs multiply quickly, so clumps will need dividing in a few years' time in March or October, carefully separating them into individual bulbs and replanting with the tips of the bulbs level with the soil surface.