10 tough plants for early-June spectacle

Visually striking colour and foliage

With the combined heavy rain and sunshine, our garden is going utterly bananas, the flowers keep coming and there are tonnes more to come! The even better news is, insects are suddenly abundant too, long may it continue.

1) Iris sibirica ‘Caesar’s Brother’

Our garden taught me about Iris sibirica, a fantastic species of Iris that is tough and, once established, vigorous enough to outcompete other low growing plants. Forming a tight vertical clump that holds its own, as you can see in the above photo, surrounded by vigorous geraniums, nettles and growing in part-shade. The catch? It needs soil that won’t totally dry out in summer, but it’s generally very tolerant. It comes in various different colours except pink and proper purple, it would seem.

Is ‘Caesar’s Brother’ purple or is it blue? I’ve convinced myself it’s just on the right side of purple in real life, it looks bluer in photos. Either way, I need to shut up and just like it because it grows so well here. I divided and moved cl…