Key plants in The Orchid Garden

An erect perennial to 60cm tall, the common spotted orchid has usually purple-spotted, lance-shaped leaves and dense spikes of purple, pink or white flowers with darker markings in late spring and early summer.

A terrestrial orchid, the heath spotted orchid has lance-shaped, mid-green leaves which may have brown or purple spots. The flowers, in spikes 5-10cm long, from mid-spring to late summer, may be white, pink, pale purple or purplish red, with darker spots and streaks.

The colour of this species is highly variable from pure white, pale pink, pale lilac to dark magenta flowers with a darker lip and yellow centre. Each flower measures up to 20cm across. It is historically the most awarded species, as well as the national flower of Colombia.

Tall grey or white-woolly biennial up to 2m in height, great mullien forms a rosette of large mid-green leaves to 50cm long in its first year, with a stout, upright, woolly stem bearing a succession of light yellow, saucer-shaped flowers 3cm across in the summer of the second year.