Wildflower Plants A to Z

• These low, trailing plants are recommended for rockeries, containers or garden walls, where they’re sure to delight with small, snapdragon-like flowers in mauve and yellow. So-named for its ivy-shaped leaves edged with red, there’s a certain magic to these miniature blooms- in bulk, they resemble a whimsical fairy village! A hardy climbing plant for those who want to add a splash of colour to a covered crevice.

• Type: Perennial 
• Height: 5-10cm.
• Flowers: June-October
• Soil Requirement: Well-drained
• Light Requirement: Full sun or partial shade
• Natural Habitat: Cliff faces, coastal areas, grasslands
• Also known as: Climbing Sailor, Mother Of Thousands, Oxford Ivy

What’s better than spikes of snapdragon-like wildflowers? This particular plant specimen’s vivid violet colouration add a rich and regal splash of colour in beds, borders and gravel gardens, as well as being beneficial for bees and being super easy to naturalise. 

• Type: Perennial 
• Height: 22-60cm.
• Flowers: June-October
• Soil Requirement: Well-drained, sandy
• Light Requirement: Full sun
• Natural Habitat: Waste ground, rocky soil

These yellow-and-orange clusters of pea-like flowers bring some fanciful flowers to your garden, but in a more down-to-earth way: hardy and low-growing, this meadow plant is an important source of nectar to certain pollinators, and its warm colouration adds a distinct summertime shine to lawns and wild gardens.

• Type: Perennial  
• Height: 15-20cm.
• Flowers: May-October
• Soil Requirement: Well-drained
• Light Requirement: Full sun
• Natural Habitat: Meadows, roadsides, grasslands
• Also known as: Eggs and Bacon, Cheesecake Grass, Lamb’s Toes

Bearing larger flowers and a taller, stouter stem, the Greater Bird’s-Foot Trefoil may is a vastly different flower to its siblings, with its glamorous, golden pea-like flowers growing in bunched whorls at the end of branches, as well as having darker foliage and a preference for damp soil.

• Type: Perennial  
• Height: 30-45cm.
• Flowers: June-August
• Soil Requirement: Moist
• Light Requirement: Full sun
• Natural Habitat: Wetlands, ditches, riversides 
• Also known as: Large Bird’s-Foot Trefoil

This is a medium to tall in height hairy plant that can stand around 1.5 meters tall. The flower colours can vary from a deep pink-purple to a pale pink-white.

• Type: Annual or Biennial
• Height: 60-120cm
• Flowers: July - September
• Soil requirement: Neutral, well-drained, dry soils
• Light requirement: Full sun or partial shade
• Natural habitat: Woodland edges, ungrazed pasture, embankment

Standing proud on tall, grey-green stems, Common Valerian can grow up to an astonishing 1.5m with delicate white-pink flowers atop. It has also been known to be used as a medicinal herb to help promote sleep.

• Type: Perennial  
• Height: 15-75cm.
• Flowers: June-August
• Soil Requirement: Damp
• Light Requirement: Full Sun, Light Shade 
• Natural Habitat: Woodland clearings and ditches
• Also known as: Garden Valerian, White Valerian, Garden Heliotrope, Setwall and All-Heal

A colourful, tall-growing wildflower, recommended for rockeries or dry stone walls. A brilliant bloom for brightening borders, as its densely clustered flowers range in colour from crimson to magenta-pink, rarely even blooming in white. What’s more, these long-lasting vivid flowers self-seed readily and attract pollinators- no wonder it’s been a popular pick for British gardens since the 17th century!

• Type: Perennial  
• Height: 60-90cm.
• Flowers: May-October
• Soil Requirement: Well-drained, dry
• Light Requirement: Full sun
• Natural Habitat: Coastal areas, roadside verges 
• Also known as: Fox’s Brush, Jupiter’s Beard, Pretty Betsy

These climbing woodland legumes have an earnest and delicate charm not seen in others of its kind: its small, two-tone, pea-like petals in rich pink and purple look a bit like butterflies, which may be why they're so attractive to pollinators. 

• Type: Annual
• Height: 45–75cm. 
• Flowers: June-September
• Soil Requirement: Well-drained
• Light Requirement: Full sun
• Natural Habitat: Grasslands, verges, coastal areas
• Also known as: Fetch, Lintels

Though known for its fuzzy foliage and calyces, this plant's golden globes of florets in a pincushion formation are only the most well known of the Kidney Vetch's fiery potential palette of petals, with some growing in orange, pink or ruby red. These summery, fluffy flowers are also quite long-lived!

• Type: Perennial
• Height: 7–15cm. 
• Flowers: May-October
• Soil Requirement: Well-drained, chalky
• Light Requirement: Full sun
• Natural Habitat: Grasslands, verges, coastal areas
• Also known as: Devil’s Claws, Mary’s Fingers, Woundwort

The violet and royal blue petals that these soaring spires of petals bear are just the beginning of this flighty flora's beautiful oddities: blooming with longer, feathery-looking flowers, and even the familiar seed pods it shares with others in the legume family ripen into a deep black colour. A quirky and attractive climbing plant which does its best when planted with other tall flora to support it. 

• Type: Perennial
• Height: 60–120cm. 
• Flowers: June-August
• Soil Requirement: Well-drained
• Light Requirement: Full sun
• Natural Habitat: Hedgerows, river banks, woodlands
• Also known as: Bird Vetch, Canada Pea, Tine Grass

A hardy scrambling wildflower whose bright buttery-yellow, pea-like blooms are well-contrasted by its black ripe seed pods. A magnificent meadow addition which benefits bees and butterflies, and adds a certain shine to shady spots.

• Type: Perennial  
• Height: 50-100cm.
• Flowers: May-August 
• Soil Requirement: Well-drained
• Light Requirement: Full sun or partial shade
• Natural Habitat: Grassland, roadside verges, waste ground
• Also known as: Angle Berries, Lady’s Fingers, Meadow Pea

A hardy scrambling wildflower whose bright buttery-yellow, pea-like blooms are well-contrasted by its black ripe seed pods. A magnificent meadow addition which benefits bees and butterflies, and adds a certain shine to shady spots.

• Type: Perennial  
• Height: 50-100cm.
• Flowers: May-August 
• Soil Requirement: Well-drained
• Light Requirement: Full sun or partial shade
• Natural Habitat: Grassland, roadside verges, waste ground
• Also known as: Angle Berries, Lady’s Fingers, Meadow Pea

Roses are red, and you already knew of the Violet’s namesake shade of purplish-blue. This five-petalled flower’s beauty is well known, and in sun or in shade, it’s quite easily grown. It looks magical decorating the edge of a woodland garden, or beneath a small hedge- but this plant’s so simple, it’s easy to style it; for those who want blue, it just must be the Violet!

• Type: Perennial 
• Height: 5-10cm.
• Flowers: April-June 
• Soil Requirement: Well-drained
• Light Requirement: Full sun to full shade
• Natural Habitat: Grassland, woodland, hedgerows
• Also known as: Wood Violet

These famous five-petalled flowers are so beloved that they’ve named their own colour after their beautiful purple colouration. Not only that, but they’re shade-tolerant, making them the perfect plant to sweeten woodland gardens or under hedges, especially in contrast to other famous springtime flora, such as the primrose. A simple flower that’s easy to mix with other meadows, with a wonderful sweet scent which helps to bring in butterflies!

• Type: Perennial  
• Height: 5-10cm.
• Flowers: March-April 
• Soil Requirement: Moist or well-drained
• Light Requirement: Full sun to full shade
• Natural Habitat: Grassland, woodland, hedgerows
• Also known as: Florist’s Violet, Sweet Pansy

This winding wildflower boasts a long, speckled stem with thin leaves, and striking spikes of sapphire flower heads bearing red, tongue-like stamens. Don't be rattled by its slightly thorny exterior- Viper's Bugloss is a lot more beauty than bite, making for a charming plant for borders, and it benefits pollinators, too!

• Type: Biennial
• Height: 25–75cm. 
• Flowers: June-September
• Soil Requirement: Well-drained
• Light Requirement: Full sun
• Natural Habitat: Grassland, coastal, heathland
• Also known as: Blue Devil, Cat’s Tail, Snake Flower

Wallflowers are associated with shyness today, but these brightly-coloured creepers in golden-yellow, amber and brick red make a bold statement in full bloom. These sweetly-scented plants are amazing as ornaments, adding a mysterious sylvan style to a cottage garden as they clamber across rockeries and walls.

• Type: Biennial  
• Height: 22-45cm.
• Flowers: March-April 
• Soil Requirement: Well-drained
• Light Requirement: Full sun
• Natural Habitat: Waste ground, cliffsides, quarries.
• Also known as: Bleeding Heart, Bloody Warrior, Yellow Gilliflower

Much like the wild mignonette, this tall and robust spire of fresh-looking, yellow-green petals adds a vibrant energy to a wild meadow as its verdant, branching stems of narrow leaves shoot up to the sky! Perfect for pollinators, and its colours can help bring nature back to a struggling spot as it tolerates poor soil.

• Type: Biennial  
• Height: 100-150cm.
• Flowers: May-October 
• Soil Requirement: Well-drained
• Light Requirement: Full sun
• Natural Habitat: Waste ground, roadsides, quarries.
• Also known as: Dyer’s Rocket, Dutch Pink, Jerusalem Ash

White Deadnettle has pretty white flowers permeated with green, which appear in intervals along the stem in clusters. This nettle doesn't sting- in fact, it's a very sweet flower, which makes for a great early nectar and pollen source for bees, and its young heart shaped leaves can be used in salads or cooked.

• Type: Perennial
• Height: 15-30cm
• Flowers: March - December
• Soil requirement: Moist or well-drained
• Light requirement: Full sun to partial shade
• Natural habitat: Most of the UK apart from the far North, grassland, woodland, roadsides
• Also known as: Bee Nettle, Snake Flower, White Archangel

Produces whorls of beetroot-coloured blooms with white markings on a hairy, crimson-tinted stem. As its name may suggest, it used to have uses in herbalism, and in the garden it’s quite popular with pollinators. 

• Type: Perennial  
• Height: 30-90cm.
• Flowers: June-September 
• Soil Requirement: Well-drained
• Light Requirement: Partial shade
• Natural Habitat: Woodlands, scrublands, verges.
• Also known as: Hedge Stachys, Red Archangel

With an array of purple and pink petals which attract bees, few pond-side plants are as pretty as these tall wetland wildflowers growing in whorls. Sports a darker crimson colouration on its lower lip and stem. An earnest plant which multiplies over the years; some might want to keep them in a container, or let them spill  in rivers of rich-coloured, robust flowers.

• Type: Perennial  
• Height: 30-75cm.
• Flowers: June-September 
• Soil Requirement: Moist
• Light Requirement: Full sun or partial shade
• Natural Habitat: River banks, ditches, marshes
• Also known as: Clown’s Woundwort, Marsh Betony, Ploughman’s All-Heal

Although similar in looks to the stinging nettle, Red Deadnettle has harmless, heart-shaped foliage with a purple tint. As an early-blooming plant, these whorls of hooded flowers in ruby red to pinkish-purple are a prominent source of early pollen for bees as they build up their nest.

• Type: Annual
• Height: 5-30cm.
• Flowers: March - October
• Soil requirement: Moist
• Light requirement: Full sun, partial shade
• Natural habitat: Waste grounds, field edges, roadside verges
• Also known as: Purple Deadnettle, Purple Archangel