Achillea Cloth of Gold

The giant of the yarrows. Where most top out at knee height, 'Cloth of Gold' goes to 1.2 or 1.5m and carries flat plates the size of a side plate in a deep mustard-gold. The stems are stiff enough that it rarely needs staking, which is unusual at that height.

It is a back-of-border plant and needs treating as one. The gold is strong and slightly brassy and it will fight with pink and lilac schemes; it sits far better with rudbeckia, warm roses, bronze grasses and the hot end of the border. The ferny foliage is spicy when crushed and rabbits and deer generally leave it alone, which matters here in rural Norfolk.

For drying it is one of the best things you can grow. Cut when the plates are fully open, hang somewhere warm, dark and dry, and the gold holds for months rather than weeks. It wants full sun and free drainage above all else. It will sit through a drought without complaint but rots in wet winter ground. Expect establishment in year one and the full display from year two.