Growing a late garden
A lot of late-flowering perennials are called ‘prairie plants’ because some of them, such as rudbeckia and echinacea, are native to the North American prairies. They’re relatively recent additions to our gardens compared to roses, peonies and other ‘co age garden’ favourites that tend to flower earlier, but the two groups of plants can work well together in the same border. If you find room for both, then the flowering season in your garden will be much longer. Late-flowering perennials will end up flowering at the same time as some more ‘traditional’ plants. Most repeat-flowering roses will still have another flurry of blooms before the frosts and their liking for clay will work well with fellow clay-lovers, rudbeckia and helenium. Probably the most colourful traditional plants to pair with lateflowering perennials are dahlias. If you have some in the border, try coupling them with orange and dark red gaillardias in front, or
Verbena bonariensis planted in between, so its purple flower heads weave among the dahlia blooms. OthersOt are natural companions for grasses, which weave in and out of them and provide a wispy, understated backdrop of brown and straw colours to show off the bright perennial flowers. Echinaceas blend wonderfully well with grasses, as does blue-flowered perovskia ‘Blue Spire’ (Russian sage). ThThe beauty of late-flowering perennials is that as the last flowers begin to age, they bring a more muted pale e of colours, which is beautiful amid the autumn hues of trees and shrubs. So, don’t deadhead the last flush of flowers, let them grow old gracefully!