The easy ones that is. The ones which don't need staking, spraying, feeding, protecting from frost, frequent dividing and general cosseting. Are they interesting enough? Exciting enough?
I couldn't garden without alchemilla mollis which meets all these criteria. It's called Lady's Mantle because each leaf after rain, lookd like a pretty shawl with beads all around the edges. The flowers are a fresh lime green, and frothy, giving a relaxed cottage garden look for a couple of months. As soon as the flowers start to brown, you can cut the whole plant close to the ground and it will very quickly send up a clump of fresh new leaves which will last till the autumn. It does however seed itself around, but, if you catch them quite small, they are not hard to remove. I always allow some of the self sown seedlings to stay - the composition is then different every year as the balance changes between groups of plants, and when I need space for a new purchase, it's usually an alchemilla that has to go. They weave through my garden like a unifying band and if you have a big space to fill you can't have too much of it. It tends to collapse a bit after heavy rain but does recover without any help from me.
All in all a star plant!
next the hardy geraniums