Candytuft Crown Mixed

Dense domed clusters of tiny four-petalled flowers in white, soft pink, lavender, ruby-red and violet, on compact mounds of 25 to 30cm. When it is going, the flowers cover the plant so completely that you can barely see a leaf.

It is the hardy annual that actually does what the packet promises. It germinates readily, tolerates poor dry ground and a bit of shade, and it is close to impossible to fail with, which makes it the one to give a child or anyone who has been put off by a row of nothing. There is a honey scent on a warm afternoon, and the flat clusters bring in butterflies, bees and hoverflies in numbers out of all proportion to the size of the plant.

The honest limitation is that each sowing flowers hard and then stops. Six or seven weeks of heavy bloom, then it sets seed and gives up, which is why a single spring sowing leaves a gap in August. Sow a short row every three or four weeks from March to June and you will have it through to September. It self-seeds gently, and the volunteers tend towards white and pale mauve rather than the reds.