Five plants that earn their place in a small Jersey garden

In a small garden, every plant has to justify itself. A shrub that looks good for two weeks and sulks for fifty is a poor deal when you've only got room for six shrubs.

These are five I keep coming back to for Jersey gardens. None of them are difficult, and all of them do more than one job.

Hebe

Handles the salt wind better than almost anything, stays neat without much pruning, and the bees are all over it. If you're anywhere near the coast, start here.

Rosemary

Evergreen structure, flowers early when very little else does, thrives on being ignored in poor dry soil, and you can cook with it. Four jobs from one plant.

Geranium (the hardy sort)

Not the bedding pelargoniums — the hardy cranesbills. They knit together and cover the soil, which means less weeding for you, and they flower for months. Cut them back hard after the first flush and they go again.

Sarcococca

Christmas box. Small, glossy, thoroughly dull for eleven months, and then in January it scents an entire garden from flowers you can barely see. Put it near a door where you'll walk past it.

Amelanchier

If you've room for one small tree, this is a strong candidate. Blossom in spring, berries the birds take in summer, proper colour in autumn, and it never gets big enough to be a problem.