Who gives much thought to where a particular plant comes from, its history? It’s sitting there at the garden centre with a handy pot label telling us all we need to know about how much sun and water it likes. What’s never on the label is the plant’s back-story – where its ancestors grew. Were they clinging to the side of a mountain in China when discovered by western plant collectors? Or were they growing wild in North American woodlands when a fresh wave of settlers arrived in the 17th Century? For a bit of fun, here we reveal the history of plants…

1. Take everyone’s garden favourite, Phlox, for example. Do the gardeners who plant it know that a few hundred years back it was growing wild in the United States, a native to New York right the way west to Iowa, and south to Georgia, Mississippi and Arkansas? It was such a lovely plant, that when settlers from the old world arrived, they quickly sent samples of it home where its exotic beauty could be admired. Thomas Jefferson himself – one time US President and keen botanist – brought Phlox into his garden at Monticello, Virginia. Imagine if he could see what plant breeders have achieved with phlox varieties over the 200+ years since, to produce the robust, sturdy no-need-for-staking options (like Volcano™ Phlox) that are available to us today – lush, rich in colour and the most easy-care – Volcano phlox is the best phlox around.

2. Given Bird of Paradise is the official flower of Los Angeles, you might think it comes originally from that part of the world, but it doesn’t. These astonishing plants are a tight knit family with only around five species recognised. And they all come from Africa. It’s very likely Birds of Paradise arrived in Britain around the time botanist Joseph Banks was officially advising King George lll, helping His Royal Highness to create the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The clue is in the botanical name they were given by western botanists – Strelitzia – named after Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, George’s wife, who had a keen interest in botany and the new gardens.

3. Fruit trees are so valued that they have been carried around the world for people to grow and enjoy probably from the moment we started to plant gardens.The Apricot is a good example – it’s grown in so many places around the world, it’s almost hard to believe that apricots (a prunus species) originally grew wild in China and central Asia. These days modern hybridisation, on top of centuries of selective breeding, means gardeners have brilliant options when choosing a small, pretty flowering fruit tree covered once a year in delicious fruit.