Simon Akeroyd - 100 Perfect Plants: A Simple Plan for Your Dream Garden

While relaxing in the kitchen not so long ago, my ten-year-old daughter just happened to ask me what my favourite plant is, in the world, ever, ever! It should be such an easy question for a gardener to answer, but after pausing to think, I realised I didnt have a clue. You see, choosing one favourite plant is almost impossible. As a gardener I work with thousands of different plants of all shapes and sizes, and each one has its own unique character. In fact, in one of the gardens I am responsible for, Agatha Christies Greenway, there are over 3,000 different types of plants on the estate, so how can I possibly choose just one favourite? Its like asking a mother to choose between her children, or making a child in a sweet factory decide which treat they like the best.

The only way to answer my daughter, eventually, was to list all my favourite plants, which turned out to be a lengthy process. She went to bed a few hours later with a slightly glazed expression on her face and a determination never to ask me another gardening question again!

The bare bones of the list I made on the kitchen table that evening is almost what appears here in this book, except for a number of adjustments made during the writing process. As I began 100 Perfect Plants, it stirred memories of other plants in other gardens I had encountered. There were some I had fallen in love with but had since forgotten, others Ive come to blows with and wed gone our separate ways for a while, but found each other again. Others still, I was once comfortable with but ultimately discarded, because theyve become over-familiar and over-used or Ive found a more exciting and showy substitute to inspire me.

So what is a perfect plant? Well, lets face it, as far Im aware, nothing is perfect. But even after accepting that complete perfection is unachievable, I still had to grapple hard with which plants should make the final cut! After all, appreciation of a plant is very subjective and sometimes it is the very imperfections in something that create the attraction in the first place.

Usually, for something to appeal to us, it needs to entice more than one of our senses. We tend, as gardeners, to concentrate on plants purely for their visual appearance and beauty, but sometimes our favourite plants appeal to the other senses, too. Many of us have subconsciously chosen a plant because of its scent a chocolate cosmos, a scented rose or a lemon verbena. In purely sensory terms the fragrance of a flower is usually the most evocative and arousing of all, conjuring up feelings of happiness, nostalgia and a plethora of other emotions and memories.

The spectacular rill garden at Coleton Fishacre is one of the gardens I manage and features many of my favourite plants.

Ask a cook to choose their favourite plant, and they will almost certainly choose something that tastes sensational, like the honeyed flavour of a Coxs orange pippin apple or a lush Rochester peach picked warm and juicy from the greenhouse. Others might prefer the tactile feel of a plant; the coarseness of Gunnera manicata or the soft, velvety feel of the foliage of Stachys byzantina. Even sound can play a part in our enjoyment of plants. For some people there may be nothing better than the rustling sounds of bamboos and grasses in the summer breeze.

What makes us call something perfect is often the sum of all parts and how all the elements come together as a whole. At other times it is a single aspect that you become besotted with. Like a difficult actress, one single, fleeting performance for one glorious moment is so spectacular you can forgive the petulant moods and the inevitable sulkiness when she is out of the limelight for the rest of the season.

I have tried to feature both kinds of plants; the instant but short-lived gratification of the truly spectacular performers, as well as those plants that provide interest for much of the garden year, but with no single particular wow factor moment.

Considering there are over 70,000 plants available to buy in garden centres and nurseries across Britain, trying to condense it down to just 100 is very difficult. There are many plants I could have chosen to make the top 100, which I am personally and sentimentally very attached to, yet they did not make the final cut.

As the saying goes, you always remember the first time you fall in love. I first saw her at RHS Wisley Gardens when I was about ten years old. I was bowled over, and felt my heart starting to beat so hard I imagined everybody nearby could hear it. She was called Rose, or should I say Rosa mundi and I couldnt take my eyes off her! I was fascinated by the swirly, raspberry ripple colours, and thought it incredible that nature could create something so quirky and colourful. I bought her for 1 (with my mums financial assistance) and planted her at home. Wherever Ive moved to since, Ive always taken cuttings and ensured Ive got one of them growing in my garden. This deep affection persists, and this is despite that fact that there are far more reliable roses out there, with better disease resistance and flowers for far longer in the season. For this reason, sadly Rosa mundi didnt make it into this book, yet it always holds a special place in my heart as my first true love.

There were a few practical reasons for my final selection in this book; I wanted to choose a range of plants that offered seasonal interest, I have chosen plants that should be easily available to buy. I have tried to select plants that are hardy and dont require exceptionally mild climates or a greenhouse to grow them in. All the plants featured in this book are fairly reliable and easy to grow although it will be necessary to check their individual requirements and preferences. With regard to trees and shrubs, Ive picked plants that wont get too big for your own garden. So, for example, there are no large oak trees or impressive cedars of Lebanon. If you are lucky enough to have a huge, sweeping estate with lakes, bridges and acres of parkland then this may not be the book for you, although I hope you might still find some inspiration for your borders and shrub beds.

Mostly, though, Ive chosen plants that make me happy. Theyre plants that, when I see them in the garden, cheer me up if Ive had a bad day. Theyre plants that make the world a joy to live in. I have been very lucky and privileged to spend my career working as a gardener, being surrounded by beauty every day. I hope the plants in this book give you as much pleasure and joy as they have given to me and thousands of others who come to enjoy them in our gardens at the National Trust. Perhaps nothing really is perfect in the true sense of the word, but I believe that having some of these plants in your garden will help make your life as close to perfect as you can get.

Rosa mundi is one of the first plants that fired my passion for gardening. I still grow it in every garden I move to.