All gardeners strive to create a little bit of heaven on their own patch of earth. The year starts well. You clean away the debris of the previous year and look forward to the spring bulbs. They arrive in a burst of colour. So far so good.

But as the last tulips fade away, there’s a bit of a lull until the summer flowers begin to appear. You should be weeding furiously at this stage but often the weather isn’t nice, or the odd time it’s too nice and you abandon the garden for the beach.

You try to catch up in July but the slugs are there before you. By August you have given up the ghost and half the plants have been flattened by the gales and the ground elder is spreading at a rate of knots.

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Trouble free

You are about to give up when you are rescued by the arrival of the stately Japanese anemone. If you want trouble free perennials that thrive on neglect, this lovely flower is a must have for the late summer/autumn garden. It only asks for partial shade but it also tolerates full sun as long as its roots are kept damp.

There are lots of varieties that range in colour from white to deep lilac with cheery yellow centres. It is clump forming and it would do no harm to divide plants every five to ten years. It can be cut back hard in the spring and this will bring on new growth. Even better still most garden pests don’t go near them. If you want a flower to withstand winds and the wilderness of a late summer garden then the Japanese anemone is it.