Garden centres are dangerous places. As soon as you walk in, you are saluted by tiers of bright-faced primulas and pansies, early tulips in full flight, late daffodils in final golden swan-song and other engagingly displayed, ephemeral goods. They send out powerful greed-beams that burn straight into those little acquisitive crevices in our natures. But a long-lasting garden is never built on impulse buys. So, walk right by these vegetable sirens. Cut them dead. Don't even give them the time of day.
Direct your steps instead to the hardworking perennials in the nether regions of the premises. Here you will find plants that reappear year after year, and that will soon become old friends in the garden. There are crowds of suitable candidates. I'd love to give every single one a glowing reference, but I'll restrict myself to just eight good and true individuals.
All have long seasons of interest, all are pretty disease-resistant and pest-proof (although I can't rule out the possibility of predation by deer or rabbit - two creatures with whom I'm glad I don't have to contend). And all are gardener-proof, putting up with the most wanton neglect, or over-solicitousness, as the case may be. None of them is rare, or chic, but who cares? Here is my unfussy octet of staunch companions.
Lady's Mantle (Alchemilla mollis), from Turkey and the Caucasus, is at its best in the morning when the grey-green, rounded, scalloped leaves are silvered with dew. In early summer it sends up a loose, 18-inch-tall froth of tiny, lime-green flowers. When they fade, the whole plant may be sheared to the ground and another flush of fresh leaves and flowery foam will follow. Some gardeners consider Lady's Mantle a nuisance because it seeds eagerly. Don't mind the seedlings that appear in the wrong places - just pull them up. Grow as groundcover under roses or shrubs, in awkward cracks, or at the front of a border.
More groundcover is provided by Persicaria affinis `Superba', a mat-forming Himalayan knotweed that throws itself across rocks, up steps and through flower beds. It's easy to stop its gallop, if you wish, by simply ripping it out. It flowers in midsummer: pale-pink spikes that deepen to dark-pink for months on end. The smallish, pointy-ovate leaves turn bronze in autumn. I give my luxurious clump a Marine Corps short-back-and-sides each spring.
There are countless varieties of Asiatic Bergenia, the aptly-named Elephant's Ears, with its big, leathery, cabbagey leaves. Most are evergreen, and flower in tints of candypink or crimson in spring, while some put out bonus, desultory blooms at odd times during the year. `Ballawley' is a fine Irish cultivar of B. purpurascens, with leaves that colour a rich red-brown in winter . My favourite is the small-leaved `Wintermarchen', which is not easy to find. The cranesbills, or hardy geraniums, should not to be confused with pelargoniums, the tender often-red geraniums that look best in terracotta pots. Hardy geraniums, from Europe and Asia, are sterling, sturdy plants that grow almost anywhere. There are hundreds, with many different habits and flowers that range from white to pink to blue. The dark-throated, shocking-pink G. psilostemon, `Johnson's Blue' and the pink-veined, white G. clarkei `Kashmir White' are excellent border plants. G. macrorrhizum has semi-evergreen, sticky, scented leaves and is perfectly happy in that trying situation: dry shade.
Another dry-shade (and-anywhere-else-you-choose-to-put-it) plant is the Japanese anemone (Anemone x hybrida). My favourite is the white-flowered `Honorine Jobert'. For three-quarters of the year it confines itself to deeply-cut, dark-green foliage. But in late summer, when all around are looking weary, it shoots up knobbly buds on tall, wiry stems. These open into long-lasting, pure-white flowers with spun-gold stamens.
Knautia macedonica, from central Europe, has, alas, no common name. It is a clump-former with dainty little button-flowers of deep-red - a fashionable colour at the moment. Plant among other perennials and ornamental grasses where it will insinuate its flowering stems to produce its miniature pincushions in all the right places - from early summer until autumn.
The evergreen wallflower, Erysimum `Bowles' Mauve' forms a small, woody subshrub and cannot be propagated by division, like many other perennials. Instead, it roots readily from cuttings taken in early summer. I propagate mine in pots of compost laced with grit, but many gardeners just thrust a few stalks in the ground near the parent plant, where apparently they take root without trouble. The foliage is a dark blue-green and makes a good foil for the constant supply of pinky-purple flowers. If you ever see a perennial wallflower called `Julian Orchard', grab it. Its foliage is darker and more blue than `Bowles' Mauve'. The lightly-scented flowers open the rusty-red-pink of faded velvet curtains, and age to a dignified mauve.
The final grouping in my excellent eight is the large-flowered penstemons. Semi-evergreen (and again increased by summer cuttings) , they bear tubular bells - which identifies them as members of Scrophulariaceae, the foxglove family. They flower in shades of white, pink, red and purple, from mid-summer until autumn, and sometimes until Christmas. Grow in well-drained, fertile soil (winter damp will finish them off) in sun or partial shade. Cut back the main flowering stems when they are waning and another lot of flower-spikes will push out from the side-shoots. Among the more hardy are the wine-red `Garnet' (correctly known as `Andenken an Friedrich Hahn'), the crimson `Schoenholzeri' (also known as `Firebird') and `Evelyn', a delicate pink variety from the now-defunct Irish nursery, Slieve Donard.
Jane Powers is at: jpowers@irish-times.ie