Aubrieta in garden borders or spilling over walls and rockeries is a lovely sight. Brash and brilliant mats of colour – whether Blue Beauty,  Royal Violet or Purple Cascade, the most common ones. It’s an honest, reliable and easy-going plant, requiring no care whatsoever.

I wondered where the name came from and after a bit of googling discovered that the plant was named after  a Frenchman, Claude Aubriet (1665-1742),  illustrator and botanical artist. He was particularly fond of champignons and famous for his drawings of fungi. He was also botanical painter to ‘The Sun King’, Louis X1V  and had a long career at court (1706-1735). The gardens at Versailles became world famous as did his illustrations of the royal Jardin des Plantes.