Bring a touch of the mediterranean to your borders with the brightly coloured achillea
With their large flat plates of colour held on upright stems, Achillea are a great structural plant and classic standby of the herbaceous border.
Drought tolerant and long flowering, they are sadly short-lived and tend to be unreliable over time. Increasingly in vogue (perhaps due to the introduction of new colours and varieties), they are still most common in the hot colours of yellow and terracotta.
My favourite is the pale creamy ‘Mondpagode’ which is especially breathtaking when dusted in winter frost.