Scottish growing tool

French Beans Variety Selector: Which One For Your Garden

Every recommendation below traces back to our full French Beans varieties comparison — this page is the fast route to one answer for your specific situation, no clicking through required.

If: Sheltered, or fairly average conditions → Longest cropping season from the shortest, easiest support to build or Sheltered, or fairly average conditions → Not sure, just give me the safest all-round choice or Exposed: coastal, hilltop, or gales are common → Not sure, just give me the safest all-round choice or Not sure, just give me the safest all-round choice

CobraAGM

The best overall pick for most Scottish gardens: it's the shortest of the three climbing varieties, which eases the structural demands of the support without sacrificing cropping length — a continuous heavy cropper over a long season. For a garden with reasonable but not extreme shelter, and a support built to spec, it gives the most beans for the structure you put up.

If: Sheltered, or fairly average conditions → A taller frame to fill, and I don't mind the extra support demands

Golden GateAGM

Worth choosing over Cobra if you want a taller climber and don't mind the extra support demands. Its flat yellow pods are a genuine visual departure, and at 2.5 to 4 metres it fills a taller frame than Cobra ever will, but that extra height is exactly why it's the wrong call on an exposed site.

If: Sheltered, or fairly average conditions → Flat, pale green pods, and soil that isn't ideal (chalk, clay, loam or sand)

AlgarveAGM

Worth choosing over Golden Gate if you'd rather have flat, pale green pods than yellow ones. Height, spread and hardiness match Golden Gate, and it also tolerates chalk, clay, loam or sand soil. It's flagged for slug, snail and blackfly vulnerability specifically, which Golden Gate's own listing doesn't mention, worth the extra vigilance if slugs are already a problem on your plot.

If: Exposed: coastal, hilltop, or gales are common → No staking at all, and beans that brace each other in windy blocks

SpriteAGM

The dwarf pick for the windiest sites: it's bred to lean on its neighbours when grown close together in wide bands or blocks rather than single rows, so the plants brace each other, which particularly suits a windier site. It produces long, pencil-thin, stringless pods and needs no staking at all.

If: Exposed: coastal, hilltop, or gales are common → A heavy crop of pods, including from containers on a patio

BostonAGM

One of the two dwarf picks for a genuinely exposed plot: it's dwarf, needs no support at all, gives a heavy crop of 15cm dark green cylindrical pods, and can be grown in containers on a patio. You trade the long cropping window of a climber for a start that's over sooner, so plan on succession sowings to keep pods coming.

If: Exposed: coastal, hilltop, or gales are common → Distinctive pod colour, even without an RHS Award of Garden Merit

Purple Teepee

The pick if pod colour is the deciding factor: its dark purple pods turn green on cooking, a genuine visual departure. It's the one variety on this list without the RHS Award of Garden Merit, though its dwarf habit, hardiness and cultivation needs otherwise match Boston and Sprite exactly.

Answer these as a quick wizard instead →

French Beans growing guide →Full French Beans varieties comparison →