Common mullein

A tall, statuesque, winter-growing cormous perennial from the winter-rainfall fynbos of South Africa's Western Cape, grown for its bold fans of upright sword leaves and branched spikes of pink (to white) tubular flowers in late spring. Known as the Cape bugle-lily, it is a striking fynbos geophyte that flowers profusely the season after a fire. Honesty (load-bearing): it is a TALL plant, 4 to 6 feet in flower, and it is WINTER-GROWING and SUMMER-DORMANT - it grows through autumn and winter, flowers in late spring, then dies back and rests dry through summer, so you water it from autumn to spring and keep it dry and at rest in summer; watering it through a hot summer rots the corm. It is FROST-TENDER to borderline (RHS rates it about H3-H4): in cold-winter areas grow it in a warm, sheltered, sharply-drained spot or a large pot, or lift and store the dormant corms. It wants FULL SUN and well-drained soil and the room its height needs. In the wild it is FIRE-ADAPTED, flowering en masse the season after a fynbos fire. The corms are inedible. It is bird-pollinated, worked by sunbirds (and butterflies) along with long-tongued flies - described in the prose, since it is grown as an ornamental rather than for any crop.

The classic large-flowered garden clematis - represented here by the iconic Jackman hybrid (Clematis x jackmanii), a deciduous twining vine bred in England in 1858 and still the benchmark for the group. It carries an abundance of showy, four-sepaled violet-purple flowers 5 to 7 inches across from mid summer, climbing 7 to 10 feet on a trellis, arbor, or fence. The classic gardener rule applies: roots in cool shade, flowers in the sun.

The towering cottage-garden classic - rigid flower spires rise 5 to 8 feet, clothed top to bottom in showy funnel-shaped blooms of white, pink, and red from June to August. A short-lived perennial usually grown as a biennial or self-seeding "annual," it reads as architecture against a wall or fence and draws hummingbirds and butterflies. Of garden origin, not native to North America, and notoriously prone to rust, which is its defining maintenance demand.

A tall native perennial wildflower of moist meadows and woodland edges across eastern North America, producing large domed clusters of vanilla-scented pink-purple flowers in late summer - among the most reliable late-season nectar sources for monarchs, swallowtails, skippers, and native bees. Formerly classified as Eupatorium purpureum.

A long-lived native perennial of central and eastern US woodland borders and prairie meadows with deep blue pea-shaped flowers in late spring, blue-green leguminous foliage, attractive black seed pods for winter interest, and a nitrogen-fixing root system (Fabaceae). Larval host for 6 documented butterfly species per NC State (orange sulphur, clouded sulphur, frosted elfin, eastern tailed-blue, hoary edge, wild indigo duskywing) - among the highest Lep-host-count perennials in the eastern flora.

An architectural, branching perennial grown for the metallic steel-blue flush it takes on in summer: small, egg-shaped flowerheads, each ringed by a collar of spiny, silvery-blue bracts, are held on rigid, blue-tinted stems above a basal rosette of leathery, heart-shaped leaves. It is a tough, genuinely drought-tolerant plant for hot, dry, sharply drained, even poor sandy or gravelly soil in full sun - it resents rich, wet ground, where it rots and flops - which makes it ideal for gravel gardens and coastal, seaside plantings, and one of the best long-lasting cut and dried flowers. At the height of summer it is a magnet for bees, butterflies, and hoverflies. It is grown purely as an ornamental and is not eaten.