10 award-winning rock plants with good foliage

Rock and alpine plants mostly flower in spring, with some flowering in autumn. Appealing foliage may add to the floral display, or it may be the main point of growing the plant, bringing us colour and interest for many months. Either way, we shouldn't forget foliage plants for rock gardens, raised beds and troughs.

Some of these choices are for the familiar rock plant conditions of sun and good drainage, but others are ideal for cooler and shadier places at the back of raised beds or shaded by fences where so many sun-loving rock plants are unhappy. As ever, all of my choices have received the RHS Recommended: Award of Garden Merit.

Golden leaves

© Christopher Whitehouse

Golden creeping Jenny

The yellow-leaved form of creeping Jenny, Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea’, is just about the lowest-growing creeper you can find. Its slender stems spread out flat, rooting as they go, shining yellow in spring and summer with upturned yellow summer flowers. It's best grown in dappled shade or shaded by a fence or wall where it will run around in less than choice conditions, bringing a sunny brightness. It'll also recover well from summer drought. Height 3cm (1in). Hardiness rating H5.

A frosty look

With white edged leaves, this is not only used as an evergreen garden plant, but as a tasty herb too

Thymus ‘Silver Queen’ is a bushy, upright plant with tiny, pale green, lemon-scented leaves making a twiggy, rounded little bush in well-drained, sunny or slightly shaded conditions. Each leaf is edged in white and in summer the shoots are topped by tiny pink flowers. This is a delightful plant and ideal not only as an evergreen in raised beds and deep troughs, but as a culinary herb; its flavour is excellent. Height 15cm (6in). Hardiness rating H5.

Maroon-leaf rosettes

© Dorling Kindersley Ltd

Bold purple rosettes that draw the eye from a distance

The bold, and pleasingly symmetrical, purple

Rosettes are the circular arrangement of flower petals; or a cluster of leaves radiating from approximately the same point usually around a stem. Examples include aeonium and most succulent plants, African violets, primula, sempervivums.

A dark green evergreen fern

Chilean hard fern

Blechnum chilense is a robust, rhizomatous evergreen fern with dark green, lance-shaped, simply- pinnate tall fronds; the fertile fronds more erect, with narrowly linear pinnae. It thrives in moist but well-drained soil, making it best for woodland gardens, and grows well in shaded areas. Height up to 1.2m. Hardiness rating H4. 

Muted tones until summer

Purple spoon-leaved stonecrop

The trailing stems of the succulent Sedum spathulifolium ‘Purpureum’ can spread 4 or 5 times the height of the plant. Each rather fragile stem carries rounded, fleshy, reddish-purple leaves formed into rosettes towards the tips. Occasionally rooting as they go, the mass of stems makes an attractive feature in a well-drained sunny place boosted by starry yellow flowers in late summer. It's happy on chalk and in pots. Height 10cm (4in). Hardiness rating H5.

Silvery-blue foliage

Evergreen foliage and flowers in the summer

Silvery evergreens are invaluable, especially if they remain reasonably small, and Hebe recurva ‘Boughton Silver’ does exactly that. It makes a bushy plant, more wide than tall, with narrow, pointed, blue-tinted silver leaves about 5cm long.In late summer and autumn, bright showy spikes of small white flowers emerge from the upper leaf joints creating a pale harmony of shades. Ideal as a specimen in a well-drained raised bed or in a container. Height 60cm (1ft11in). Hardiness rating H4.

Fresh green

Oak fern with foliage in spring, summer and autumn

A delightful ferny creeper for the back of the rock garden is the British

A native plant is one that originated or arrived naturally in a particular place without human involvement. In the British Isles, native plants are those that were here during the last ice age or have arrived unaided since.

Ivy-leaved

Silvery-green ivy-leaved cyclamen

Cyclamen hederifolium (ivy-leaved cyclamen) is a

Perennials are plants that live for multiple years. They come in all shapes and sizes and fill our gardens with colourful flowers and ornamental foliage. Many are hardy and can survive outdoors all year round, while less hardy types need protection over winter. The term herbaceous perennial is used to describe long-lived plants without a permanent woody structure (they die back to ground level each autumn), distinguishing them from trees, shrubs and sub-shrubs.

Vivid purple flowers

The vibrant purple flowers boldly contrast the greenery

Aubrieta is one of the easiest and most popular spring flowering rock plants but when the flowers are over, it looks rather dull. The spreading plants of Aubrieta ‘Argenteovariegata’ have vivid, pinkish-purple flowers which make a vivid contrast with the silver-edged, pale green leaves. The leaves are evergreen so provide colour all year. The yellow edged A. ‘Aureovariegata’ has also been awarded the RHS recommended: Award of Garden Merit. Both are less vigorous than green-leaved forms. Height 7cm (3in). Hardiness rating H5.

An overlapping design

Also known as Aleutian maidenhair

We usually think of maidenhair ferns as house plants but a few are perfectly hardy outside. A. ‘Subpumilum’ is a form of the steadily spreading Adiantum aleuticum with fan-shaped fronds split into ring of long segments with purple midribs, each lined with opposite pairs of small leaves. It's very low growing, but its fronds overlap and interknit to provide a delightful carpet in full or dappled shade. It appreciates good drainage. Height 5cm (2in). Hardiness rating H5.