12 best plants and products for small London gardens

It’s spring – so anyone with a garden, patio, window box or container is out there, trying to get things to grow.

This is London, so space isn’t a given. Hell, a garden isn’t a given. But view that as a challenge.

London is full of enterprising horticulturalists who do brilliant things in yards, on steps, in pokey yards, on tablecloth-spaced patches of earth; you’ve just got to make the space you’ve got work.

Here are some plants and products to make it sing.

Veritable Smart garden

This is proof that you can grow things without a garden – in fact, without space or light. This little device allows you to grow a range of plants – including herbs, mini tomatoes and tiny strawberries – under its own LED light with a water tank. Just put the ready-seeded compost-lingots in the machine, add water to the tank and switch on.

£159.99 | Lakeland | Buy it now

Camellia Rosthorniana

If you’re just going to have one flowering shrub, make it special. I don’t usually care for camellias but this one, from RHS, is different from the blowsy sort, with delicate smaller flowers – white flushed with pink.

It’s got all the benefits of that flexible shrub – do use ericaceous compost – but is altogether more refined than the usual. Swank, swank.

£24.99 | RHS Plants | Buy it now

Pond plants

The Wildlife Trusts have launched a campaign – Big or Small; Ponds for All – to get gardeners to host a pond to encourage wildlife. It’s surprising what you can do even in limited space. To stock your miniature pond try the Barrel Collection of 10 pond plants from this excellent website for native plants.

£30 | Wildflower Shop | Buy it now

Vanessa Bell Rose

You want a lovely rose? Of course you do. This is a very pretty, quite compact rose, 3.5ft x 3ft, good for growing in containers, with clusters of pale yellow blooms and an upright shape. Fragrance described as green tea with notes of lemon and honey. Yum. Named after the Bloomsbury Vanessa Bell. Obviously. Bare Root.

£18.00 | David Austin Roses | Buy it now

Butterfly Pink Pot Collection

Sarah Raven does some very classy collections of plants for containers, so all the colour and shape combining is done for you; this one is very pretty, and will be even prettier with butterflies on the flowers.

£35.95 for 15 | Sarah Raven | Buy it now

Lettuce to Go

Growing vegetables from seed is obviously the economical way to go, but small rooted plants get you going quickly. This excellent nursery supplies a variety of rooted veg seedlings, varying from month to month. With the lettuce, you just keep cutting the outside leaves and bingo, the plant renews itself.

£7.50 for 12 plants | Organic Plants | Buy it now

Kew Seed Box

As you’d expect, Kew Gardens does wonderful seed collections ranging from its specialist Marianne North Collection, with seeds from plants discovered by the distinguished Victorian artist and illustrated with her paintings, to its own Heritage range. Its seed box collections, from herbs to sweet pea, make excellent presents.

£16 | Kew Shop | Buy it now

Gardening Clogs

If you’re going to spend any time in the garden, then you need weatherproof garden clogs which you can leave outside the door to slip on and off. These simple green clogs by Hunter are robust and oddly stylish.

£50 | Hunter Boots | Buy it now

Mulberry Morus Mojo Berry

If you have room for only one fruit tree, make it fabulous. The mulberry has been in Britain since the sixteenth century – Thomas More had one in his Chelsea garden which was going strong until recently – and it produces delicious plump black fruit. They recline to one side in old age – say, 300 years’ time – which is even more stylish. Fabulous. Worth the wait.

£22.80 plus | Blackmoor | Buy it now

RHS: 50 Plants You Can’t Kill by Jamie Butterworth

A pessimistic take on horticulture, admittedly (and not entirely accurate; we’re talking about robust plants, not imperishable ones), but for the novice gardener, it’s well worth knowing what to plant to give you the best chance of success, even with benign neglect.

£8.99 | Octopus Books | Buy it now

Vertical planter

This is an ingenious idea, which means you can plant down, or up, a wall or shed. Simply screw this material to a wall, fill the pockets with earth or compost, and plant with strawberries or whatever takes your fancy. (Burgon & Ball also do stylish window box planters with a willow wicker exterior.)

£7.99 for 2 | Burgon & Ball | Buy it now

Sophie Conran Secateurs

All right; it’s shallow to think about what your garden tools look like. So, I’m shallow. These high precision secateurs by Sophie Conran are reassuringly heavy but also compact, elegant and nicely packaged.

£27.99 | Burgon & Ball | Buy it now