Everyone loves lavenders. They look good, smell good, they’re easy to grow, and you can do so much with them. ‘Pukehou’ is an outstanding lavender, one of the bushy, taller growing types. It’s covered with its lavender-blue flower spikes for many months in summer. When it’s not flowering the foliage is still a pleasing feature. As with other big and bushy lavenders, a trimming in late summer keeps ‘Pukehou’ growing strongly.

What do you do with a lavender such as ‘Pukehou’? The options are enormous - it all depends on your imagination really, but there are a few restrictions, such as the fact that you must have a well drained soil, a sunny spot, and frosts must not be severe. That lavender colour looks amazing with deep red - contemplate a short hedge of ‘Pukehou’ lavender with ‘Dublin Bay’ climbing roses at the rear and a low sprawling rose such as ‘Red Flower Carpet’ at its base. Great with blues and greys too. How about Dichroa ‘Blue Sapphires’ and in the foreground groundcovering Lithospermum ‘Grace Ward’? Interplanting ‘Pukehou’ with marguerite daisies is another fun idea - yellow ones such as ‘Sunjay’ or the pink ‘Sunrise Rose’.