Are you looking for unusual plants for a town garden? Here are some of the best shrubs, plants and bulbs that are currently being chosen by gardeners for small as well as large gardens.

Striking plants and shrubs for small gardens, large containers

For a courtyard or small town garden, Pittosporum tenuifolium ‘Tom Thumb’ stands out from surrounding plants. This dwarf evergreen shrub, with dark plum foliage, requires a position sheltered from the wind. And the delightfully fragrant Daphne odora ‘Aureomarginata’ does well in a sheltered spot, in sun or shade.

The bold, spiky foliage of Phormium ‘Maori Sunrise’ (syn. ‘Rainbow Surprise’) grows to approximately 3’square. The plant can be grown in a container and could provide just the right structural shape for a town garden. Divide plants that grow too tall. The variety ‘Pink Panther’ is smaller and pinker than the orange-brown colour of the plant above. Cordyline australis ‘Red Star’, a bronze-red exotic, is often grown in pots and tubs. It is hardy in London and the Home Counties to about -5C.

Black Bamboo and Sweet Box

Bamboos make good evergreen screens. In towns keep them in containers or bury liners to restrict the root runs. Diana Whittaker of PW Plants said: "Bamboos are in demand." She added that Fargesia nitida (Arundinaria) and Phyllostachys nigra "Black Bamboo" are selling particularly well at the moment. Gardeners are also buying the small evergreen shrub, "Sweet Box" Sarcococca hookeriana var. digyna, which has scented white flowers in late winter.

Comparisons are odious

The majority of snowdrops are beautiful. Maybe comparisons are odious, but it is the small differences in their markings that make them interesting to collectors. The price of each snowdrop indicates how uncommon or rare the plant is.

Prices of uncommon plants

Prices of some of the interesting snowdrops on the Broadleigh Garden stand, at the recent RHS London Flower Show, serve as a guide to their commercial value: Galanthus elwesii - £4, G. platyphyllus - £2.50, G.Atkinsii - £3.

And here, for further guidance, are the prices of other choice plants that were on the Broadleigh stand: Iris unguicularis £4 - a highly attractive dwarf form, bearing dark purple flowers; Euphorbia ridiga - £5; Narcissus ‘Cedric Morris’- £8.

Snowdrops from ‘The Steppes’

Snowdrops will grow in town gardens. On the show stand of Rushfields of Ledbury, at the recent RHS show, I examined a new plant list, entitled: ‘Snowdrops from "The Steppes" 2003’. I read that soldiers brought back the snowdrop species, Galanthus plicatus, when they returned home from the Crimean War. G. plicatus ‘Colossus’, an early large form of snowdrop from Colesbourne, sells for £10.00, while the double snowdrop variety ‘Richard Ayres’ costs £15 - for one bulb ‘in the green’. The latter is a tall, double G. elwesii hybrid from Anglesey Abbey.

Pots of grass are popular again

Now that enthusiasm for ‘Land Art’ is gaining ground, ornamental grasses - in numerous shapes, sizes and colours - sell very well indeed. And they are often purchased in pots. Look out for the many splendid forms of Miscanthus. The variety Miscanthus sinensis ‘Silberspinne’ is pale straw-coloured in winter, and dainty for this type of grass, with arching leaves and fluffy seed heads on tall (1.2 m) stems.

The grass Miscanthus has recently hit the headlines, since it was discovered to be commercially useful in the manufacture of biodegradable plant containers.

Dwarf topiary for small formal gardens

Topiary Arts, Middlesex, sells Buxus sempervirens, trained into double-decker shapes - a spherical ball of leaves on a 3’ 6’’ trunk, rising through a dome of lower close-clipped branches that cover the top of the pot. For edging choose Buxus ‘Suffruticosa’, a slow-growing variety of box. Dwarf topiary box hedges, suitable for small front gardens, were displayed beside geometric shapes of grey stone paths.

For ground cover plants, consider low-growing Heuchera ‘Regina’ – pink foliage, or ‘Beauty Colour’ a purple leaf variety. Alternatively, the rich dark foliage of H. ‘Palace Purple’ comes almost true from seed.

Grey carpet stones effectively set off the clipped box.