Lamb's ear

Common houseleek, or hens-and-chicks (Sempervivum tectorum), is an evergreen alpine succulent that forms tight rosettes of fleshy, pointed leaves, each rosette (the "hen") ringed by smaller offset rosettes (the "chicks") on short runners. Barely a few inches tall, it spreads into a low mat and thrives in the harshest hot, dry, sharply drained spots: gravel, walls, sink gardens, and the tiled roofs it was once planted on. In summer a mature rosette sends up a stout stalk of star-shaped reddish-purple flowers, then that rosette dies, leaving its chicks to carry on. It is one of the toughest, most cold-hardy, most forgiving plants there is, asking only for sun and drainage and resenting nothing so much as wet, rich soil.

Bergenia cordifolia (often treated by botanists as a synonym within B. crassifolia) is a tough, evergreen perennial native to the Altai Mountains, southern Siberia and Mongolia, grown for its bold, heart-shaped leathery leaves that flush red-bronze through winter and its deep pink flower spikes in early-to-mid spring. It is one of the most tolerant groundcovers in cultivation - enduring deep shade, poor soil, drought, and hard continental cold (commonly rated to USDA Zone 3 in US horticulture; RHS rates it H7, hardy below -4°F). The honest catch is its shallowly creeping rhizomes: in mild, moist climates they can colonise well beyond the intended planting, and the large, persistent leaves trap fallen debris and are notoriously attractive to slugs and vine weevils.

Chionodoxa forbesii (syn. Scilla forbesii) is a small bulbous perennial native to western Turkey - botanically recorded only from Babadağ Mountain in Muğla Province - producing loose racemes of up to 12 star-shaped, sky-blue flowers with white centers on 4 to 6 inches stems in early to mid-spring. It naturalises freely under deciduous trees and in lawns, filling gaps with carpets of colour before most other plants wake from winter, which is its genuine garden gift. The honest catch is its eagerness to spread: it seeds prolifically and the bulbs multiply quickly, so in a small garden or a formal bed it can crowd out neighbours and become hard to contain once established. All parts are toxic if eaten, and the bulbs need a dry summer dormancy or they rot.

Liriope muscari is an evergreen, grass-like perennial native to the shady forest understories of China, Japan, and Korea, where it grows at elevations of 330 to 4,600 feet. In gardens it forms dense, weed-suppressing clumps of arching dark-green foliage topped by spikes of lilac-purple flowers in late summer, followed by ornamental black berries - earning it the RHS Award of Garden Merit. It is drought-tolerant and remarkably adaptable, but the honest catch is its behaviour outside its native range: in parts of the eastern United States it is a documented invasive species, spreading by rhizomes and self-seeding into natural areas, and it provides minimal wildlife value compared with native groundcover alternatives.

The classic cool-season bedding plant, grown for 2-4 inch flattened "face" flowers in nearly every color, usually marked with a contrasting dark blotch and central whiskering. A garden-origin hybrid (not a wild species) treated as a short-lived perennial run as a cool-weather annual or biennial - it blooms hardest in spring and fall and inevitably succumbs to summer heat. The Missouri Botanical Garden lists it as the top-selling winter bedding plant in the deep South.

A low, mat-forming member of the mustard family from the Mediterranean coast, grown almost everywhere as a cool-season annual for its dense mounds of tiny, sweetly fragrant white four-petaled flowers. The flowering is so profuse it often hides the gray-green foliage entirely. It thrives in cool weather, tolerates dry soil and drought, and is a reliable nectar source for small pollinators.