Achilleas for a bright and beautiful garden

That way you can ensure you have that fantastic display of colour not just for a few days but for several weeks!

Achilleas really do tick the box when it comes to a plant that flowers for a long period. They are commonly known as Yarrow and produce masses of pin cushion-like flowers in almost every colour imaginable, and the best ability these popular plants have is that if you chop them down when they finish flowering in August and give them a liquid feed, they have the ability to flower again in September!

Some other plants which have this ability to flower again include Astrantias, Nepetas and also Polemoniums, more commonly known as Jacobs Ladder.

Achilleas love a nice open situation as this will help them grow nice and upright. Also they love to be divided every other year, if you don’t they will still grow but won’t produce as much flower and also not stand as erect.

Divide them in Spring and keep the young shoots around the edge and discard the old woody centre like you would when dividing other clump forming perennials.

They aren’t only good in the garden either as because the flowers last so long in normal conditions when they are cut and dried for indoor use they last for even longer, so you don’t just have to benefit from them in the garden you can use them as a great addition to your floral arrangements.

But what makes Achilleas stand out in my eyes firstly is the broad spectrum of pastel-like colours that they come in, from reds to oranges, and pinks to whites including everything in between, and the only colour they don’t come in is blue!

But secondly Achilleas are a great plant for encouraging bees and butterflies into the garden as they go mad for their colourful pin cushion like flowers.

Now is a great time of year to plant them as they will now be in flower and, as mentioned, when chopped back after flowering they will flower again at the end of this year but next year where you had two flowers you will get well over a dozen!