These cottage garden favourites add a valuable element of height to planting schemes, their impressive flower spikes reaching up to 1.5m (5ft). All are biennial or shortlived perennials, flowering in the first or second summer after sowing. They then die, although they selfseed readily. You can buy them in a range of colours and it’s worth checking your seed catalogues for new varieties.

They thrive in sun in welldrained, drought-tolerant soils low in nutrients, so don’t need much caring for. Some may not survive the winter, but the more reliable varieties include V. chaixii ‘Gainsborough’, which produces pale primroseyellow flowers and ‘Cotswold Queen’, with striking yellow flowers and terracotta eye.