Key plants in Stroke Association’s Garden for Recovery

Wind-swept Pinus sylvestris and Pinus mugo trees symbolise resilience in the face of Stroke trauma. Their anthropomorphic shapes offer a comforting alternative structure to the built environment of the hospital, their scent, a transportive effect.

L. perenne is a semi-evergreen perennial with narrow blue-green leaves and pale blue saucer-shaped flowers, about 2.5cm across, in summer.

White to lilac summer flowers are followed by translucent, flattened seed heads. These will remain on the plant well into autumn, or if picked and dried, make excellent additions to dried flower arrangements. Given a sunny or partially shady site with fertile, moist, well-drained soil this charming biennial will happily self-seed. As the flowers are highly-attractive to butterflies and bees, they are perfect for naturalising in a wild garden, meadow, or at the woodland edge.

A marginal aquatic perennial with semi-erect, red-tinged green, spear-shaped leaves 1-2.5 cm long and bearing bright yellow, cup-shaped flowers, 2cm across in early summer.

Upright, clump-forming perennial plantto 1.8m tall, with finely divided aromatic foliage which is purple when young, later dark grey-green; flat flowerheads of tiny yellow flowers on tall stems appear in summer; both leaves and fruits are aniseed scented.

A robust spreading deciduous grass with narrowly lance-shaped leaves and arching stems bearing pendent, flattened spikelets 1cm in length, in late summer.