Home from a Sydney sojourn to find Turkish, North African and southwestern European Eyringium bourgatii blooming in front of rocketing Calamagrotis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’ – a combination we found at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Wisley in its exceptional long double border in the northern summer of 2017.

Here we chose E. bourgatii for lack of E. giganteum ‘Miss Willmott’s Ghost’, the wonderfully-silvered form used in the Wisley combination (second image). It’s also arresting against Sanguisorba officinalis – commonly known as great burnet (third image).