Wildflower Plants A to Z

These medium-to-tall-growing plants are unique both for their clusters of button-like blooms the colour of butter and their aromatic, ferny leaves which can even be used as an excellent deterrent for pests! Eccentric and an earnest self-seeder, those cautious of the tansy can grow them in a container, but in beds and borders, it attracts bees and butterflies, and even improves the soil by adding potassium!

• Type: Perennial  
• Height: 30-90cm.
• Flowers: July-September
• Soil Requirement: Well-drained
• Light Requirement: Full Sun
• Natural Habitat: Wetlands, rough grassland, verges
• Also known as: Buttonweed, Hind-Heal, Immortality

These early-flowering, light maroon spikelets are wonderfully versatile, and are popular picks for fields and as potted plants for a variety of reasons: as its name suggests, Sweet Vernal-Grass has a sweet, almost vanilla-like taste to it when chewed, alongside its distinct aroma of cut hay. A valuable food plant for brown and skipper butterflies larvae.

• Type: Perennial
• Height: 30-60cm.
• Flowers: April-July
• Soil requirement: Well-drained
• Light requirement: Full sun
• Natural habitat: Wildflower meadows, margins
• Also known as: Vernal Grass, Spring Grass

Produces three-leaved rosettes of broad and silky foliage. A brilliant bloom for beginners, as it’s ideal for small pots and baskets, with its daisy-like white flowers with golden centres providing a simple, earthy beauty- and that’s just the appetiser before it bears its beloved, juicy red fruits in the late summer!

• Type: Perennial  
• Height: 20-50cm.
• Flowers: April-June
• Soil Requirement: Moist but well-drained
• Light Requirement: Full Sun
• Natural Habitat: Open woodlands, grasslands
• Also known as: Alpine Strawberry

These dainty white springtime flowers are known by a variety of names: one of the most prevalent is ‘Snapdragon’, referring both to its brittle stems and how you may hear its seed pods make a popping sound as they ripen in late Spring. These silvery starbursts are also perfect for pollinators!

• Type: Perennial  
• Height: 25-60cm.
• Flowers: April-June
• Soil Requirement: Moist
• Light Requirement: Partial shade
• Natural Habitat: Hedges, banks, wood margins  
• Also known as: All-Bone, Easter Bells, Moonflower, Snapdragon

Distinguished by its namesake hairy leaves and stem as well as the peppered dark gland across their sepals, this specific specie of St. John’s Wort grows taller and with larger, pale-yellow flowers in clustered spikes. A fickle flower that prefers sunny, calciferous soils unlike the common St. John’s Wort, but a garden or grove decorated with these glorious golden-petalled pillars is a rich enough reward.

• Type: Perennial  
• Height: 60-100cm.
• Flowers: July-August
• Soil Requirement: Moist but well-drained
• Light Requirement: Full sun
• Natural Habitat: Open forests, damp grasslands 

Looking at its golden, star-shaped flowers and showoffish nectar-rich stamens which are perfect for pollinators, it's no wonder that St John's Wort is famously revered in a variety of religions and myths- even today it's highly valued in herbalism! A great plant to grow for a gorgeous golden glow.

• Type: Perennial
• Height: 30–60cm. 
• Flowers: June-September
• Soil Requirement: Moist but well-drained
• Light Requirement: Full sun or partial shade
• Natural Habitat: River banks, meadows, hedgerows
• Also known as: Cammock, Devil’s Scourge, Rosin Rose

Produces dense spikes of miniature florets in regal blues and violets, alongside long, sharp leaves with a subtle silver tint. The sky’s the limit with these showy summer wildflowers: recommended for rockeries and brilliant in borders, this is a versatile and low-maintenance flower that’s practically made for a cottage garden.

• Type: Perennial  
• Height: 30-60cm.
• Flowers: July-September
• Soil Requirement: Well-drained
• Light Requirement: Full sun
• Natural Habitat: Calcareous rocks and soils, grasslands

A low-growing, creeping beauty that thrives at woodland edges, but also makes for a unique lawn subject- not many other common flowers can compare to these small spikes of azure petals shining in the sun and bringing a little of the blue sky’s beauty down to earth for your garden!

• Type: Perennial  
• Height: 10-20cm.
• Flowers: April-July
• Soil Requirement: Moist but well-drained
• Light Requirement: Full sun or partial shade
• Natural Habitat: Roadsides, woodland, grassland 
• Also known as: Angels’ Eyes, Blue Stars

A shorter, self-seeding sorrel which bears the same upright, slender stems of scarlet and hot pink petals as its counterparts. Its small but vivid flowers add a lot of flavour to a garden, and perhaps even more flavourful are its sword-shaped basal leaves, which can even be used in making food!

• Type: Perennial
• Height: 7–25cm. 
• Flowers: May-August
• Soil Requirement: Well-drained, acidic
• Light Requirement: Full sun 
• Natural Habitat: Grasslands, woodlands, verges
• Also known as: Sour Weed

These spikes of small, scarlet-and-fuschia flowers really spice up a wildmeadow: not only that, they bring in bees and self-seed with little fuss, making them the perfect plant to pepper in! Their attractive arrow-shapes leaves also taste tart when eaten.

• Type: Perennial
• Height: 15–60cm. 
• Flowers: May-August
• Soil Requirement: Well-drained
• Light Requirement: Full sun 
• Natural Habitat: Grasslands, woodlands, verges
• Also known as: Sour Ducks, Vinegar Plant

The subtly sweet-scented Soapwort was named as it can be used to make soap, but its clusters of pristine white and pale pink petals bring to mind a bubble bath, washing up beds and borders as it self-seeds easily. A very useful and hardy herb to have around! Avoid placing near fish ponds.

• Type: Perennial 
• Height: 50-70cm.
• Flowers: June-September
• Soil Requirement: Moist but well-drained
• Light Requirement: Full sun
• Natural Habitat: Footpaths, river banks, hedges
• Also known as: Boston Pink, Jill-Run-By-The-Street, World’s Wonder

These branches of pearly-white petals, framing fuzzy cream florets, are nothing to sneeze at! Named for its strong scent, its leaves can also be used to repel harmful insects (though it’s still perfect for pollinators), and it’s sometimes used as a herbal remedy. Hardy and drought-resistant.

• Type: Perennial 
• Height: 25-50cm.
• Flowers: July-September
• Soil Requirement: Moist but well-drained
• Light Requirement: Full sun or partial shade
• Natural Habitat: Marshes, water margins
• Also known as: Ball Of Snow, Goosetongue, Seven Years’ Love

These soft-looking, bright blue blooms pair perfectly with other fluffy-petalled flowers, especially in yellows and pinks, such as hawk-bit and knapweed. An excellent plant for pollinators; bees and butterflies go baa-rmy for them! Recommended for rockeries and rough meadows, or anywhere with sandy soil. 

• Type: Biennial 
• Height: 20-50cm.
• Flowers: May-September
• Soil Requirement: Well-drained, sandy
• Light Requirement: Full Sun
• Natural Habitat: Grassland, clifftops, coastal areas
• Also known as: Shepherd’s Scabious

This whisical wildflower's short spikes of violet and burgundy beauty are just as pretty as its name! Though it's named for its medicinal uses, we think that there's nothing more rejuvinating than the sight of this multicoloured majesty flooding beds or wild meadows, as it naturalises to any environment and self-seeds readily.

• Type: Perennial
• Height: 20–30cm. 
• Flowers: June-September
• Soil Requirement: Well-drained or moist
• Light Requirement: Full sun or partial shade
• Natural Habitat: Grasslands, woodlands
• Also known as: Blue Lucy, Heart of the Earth, Thimble-Flower

The Pendulous Sedge is a popular pond-side plant, and for a good reason- its nodding, tufted heads of grassy-green and golden-brown flowers really complete the mood of a marshy meadow, and are attractive to wildlife as well! One of the tallest species of sedge, this boisterous and hardy plant will self-seed readily.   

• Type: Perennial 
• Height: 100-140cm.
• Flowers: May-June
• Soil Requirement: Moist
• Light Requirement: Partial shade
• Natural Habitat: Marshes, river banks, wet woodlands
• Also known as: Great Pendulous Sedge

Perhaps named for its spiky, orange-and-bronze tinted flower heads, there’s no mistaking the sedge’s characteristic fresh green tint and long, slender leaves. Best planted in heavy soil or slightly submerged in water to create a vibrant display at the water’s edge and benefit the wildlife. 

• Type: Perennial  
• Height: 60-90cm.
• Flowers: June-July 
• Soil Requirement: Moist
• Light Requirement: Full sun or partial shade
• Natural Habitat: Marshes, river banks, ditches

The Cyperus Sedge produces drooping, yellow-green tufted flowers, which are well-suited for pond margins for those who want a super lush and lively look. Hardy and tall-growing, the blade-like leaves of this sedge provide important cover for waterside wildlife.

• Type: Perennial  
• Height: 60-90cm.
• Flowers: May-June 
• Soil Requirement: Moist
• Light Requirement: Full sun or partial shade
• Natural Habitat: Marshes, river banks, ditches
• Also known as: Sedge Hop

Though smaller than certain other scabious, these compact, cluster-growing flowers are best suited for complimenting beds and borders rather than taking centre stage, whilst still bearing the hardiness and pretty, periwinkle blue florets of its brethren. In fact, the Small Scabious bears five-petalled florets rather than the regular four- sometimes, it’s the little things that matter.

• Type: Perennial
• Height: 60–70cm. 
• Flowers: July-August
• Soil Requirement: Well-drained, chalky
• Light Requirement: Full sun
• Natural Habitat: Grasslands, verges
• Also known as: Curl-Doddy, Lilac-Flowered Scabious

This dainty-looking globe flower produces an intricate pattern of bluish-lilac petals: the innermost flower, a soft-looking cluster of miniature florets, is framed by long and papery outer florets! A magical addition to a meadow, especially when mixed with other light-coloured wildflowers.

• Type: Perennial
• Height: 30–90cm.
• Flowers: July-September
• Soil Requirement: Well-drained
• Light Requirement: Full sun
• Natural Habitat: Grasslands, verges
• Also known as: Black Soap, Egyptian Rose, Lady’s Cushion

Named after from its shallow roots, said to have been bitten short in folklore, the Devil’s Bit Scabious is a devilishly good addition to a loamy spot in the garden. Produces rounded, purple-blue ‘pincushion’ flower heads on upright stems. A hardy and alluring plant which attracts bees and butterflies.

• Type: Perennial
• Height: 50–80cm. 
• Flowers: June-September
• Soil Requirement: Moist but well-drained
• Light Requirement: Sun or partial shade
• Natural Habitat: Bogs, woodland, heathlands
• Also known as: Blue Bonnets, Bobby Bright Buttons, Fore-Bit

For those looking for something truly unique, the Burnet Saxifrage is one in a million: bearing thin branches of miniature, crystal-white floral umbels like snowflakes, as well as highly variable foliage, ranging from thin and sharp to short and toothed.  It’s easy to naturalise, and its simple colouration makes it a suitable addition to any arrangement.

• Type: Perennial
• Height: 50–100cm.
• Flowers: May-September
• Soil Requirement: Moist but well-drained
• Light Requirement: Sun or partial shade
• Natural Habitat: Grassland, heathland
• Also known as: Lesser Burnet

Named for its serrated, saw-like leaves, these tall-growing and hardy plants are a relative of the daisy, which you’d hardly believe from their violet, thistle-like flowers. They make a sharp statement in a wild meadow! 

• Type: Perennial
• Height: 70–120cm. 
• Flowers: July-September
• Soil Requirement: Well-drained, chalky
• Light Requirement: Full Sun or partial shade
• Natural Habitat: Meadows, Forest edges
• Also known as: Dyer's Plumeless Saw-Wort

These upright spikes of nectar-rich, stripey fuchsia flowers are your best bet for a bloom that’s beneficial to the wildlife of your wild meadow- it’s best grown with grasses to balance out both plants and best show off its vivid colouration!

• Type: Perennial
• Height: 40–50cm. 
• Flowers: July-September
• Soil Requirement: Well-drained, chalky
• Light Requirement: Full Sun
• Natural Habitat: Meadows, Foot Paths
• Also known as: Esparsette, French Grass, Holy Clover

Though the Wood Sage’s crinkly foliage has a more subtle scent than some of its cousins, this sublime specimen has n unusual beauty, bearing dark burgundy stems and stamens contrasted by cream-coloured petals with a large lower lip, making it look like a spoonful of sugar- and it’s sure to add that little extra bit of sweetness to stone gardens and hedgerows.

• Type: Perennial
• Height: 30–50cm. 
• Flowers: July-September
• Soil Requirement: Well-drained
• Light Requirement: Partial shade
• Natural Habitat: Woodland, heathland, coasts
• Also known as: Garlic Sage, Hind Heal