Finding the perfect plant..

Any plant has to truly justify it’s space in today’s small-but-demanding gardens, so when you’re choosing larger kinds such as trees, shrubs and climbers it pays to pick those with more than one ‘best’ feature.

Start by determining roughly the space available, and assess your soil type, (wet/average/dry, sandy, loam or clay,) and in sun or shade. Then decide whether you want a tree, shrub, rose or climber, and think about it’s must-have visual appeal, such as flowers (any particular colour or time of year?) foliage (evergreen, deciduous, variegated, architectural – and is autumn colour essential?) and form.

Armed with basic vital statistics, start your research. You could spend hours poring over plant encyclopaedias and nursery catalogues, but nowadays it’s far easier to do the whole job online using the RHS website ‘plant search’ feature. Simply select certain characteristics and it’ll offer you a list of names with pictures and detailed information. (rhs.org.uk/plantselector)

If your particular set of specifications are too tight the choice will be small, so adjust your parameters slightly until you have a wider range to choose from.

But for people who ask an awful lot of their plants, I can suggest a few good all-rounders for particular situations that I’m often asked about.

Anyone with a sunny pergola wanting a fragrant, evergreen, self-clinging, up-market climber that doesn’t need pruning, could do no better than the star jasmine, Trachelospermum. Two kinds are commonly available, both with jasmine-scented propeller-shaped creamy-white flowers in July and August, and both are best in reasonably mild sheltered areas; T. asiaticum is the hardier plant, but the less robust T. jasminoides has slightly larger flowers.

If you want all the above plus more year-round glamour, the variegated form T. jasminoides ‘Variegata’ has prettily patterned foliage, though the flowers aren’t quite so prolific. All three are potentially big (20ft x 20ft, given time, great for large sunny walls or a pergola) and they need acid soil, but you can solve both problems by growing them in large tubs and training them up your pergola poles. They also make good patio plants, in tubs with obelisks or trellis for support.

If you’re looking for a showy self-clinging climber for a semi-shady wall, go for Schizophragma hydrangeoides ‘Roseum’, a rare climbing hydrangea with huge showy pink lacecap flowers in June. It is also good for growing up through largeish trees or on a pergola with other climbers. It’s a slow starter that takes several years to get growing, but can eventually reach 50ft unless strictly controlled.

A regular request is for compact flowering trees with year-round appeal, suitable for a small garden. Crab apples are head and shoulders above the rest. They have superb shows of long-lasting weather-resistant spring blossom in white, cream, or various shades of pink from blush to mauve, followed by autumn fruit. Some varieties have fruit that persist all winter and well into spring (‘Red Jade’, ‘Red Sentinel’).

If you want fruit for making crab apple jelly choose ‘John Downie’, while the blackbirds’ favourite is ‘Golden Hornet’. There are crab apples with purple leaves and deep mauvy flowers (‘Profusion’) and some with great autumn colours (‘Charlotte’, which also has scented double pink flowers).

If you fancy a neat semi-weeping form , try the Japanese crab Malus floribunda or ‘Crittenden’ which also has very late-lasting fruit. And for an ultra compact crab choose Malus sargentii, reaching roughly 9ft, which is smothered in white flowers followed by masses of tiny red-currant-like fruits.

Oh, there’s a suitable plant with bags of potential for every spot, if you only know where to look. Just sort your specification out before you start ‘searching’.