SOME LIKE IT HOT
Stars of the August garden are those plants able to cope with our scorching dry weather
I’ve been away from my garden for a couple of weeks and I wasn’t sure what to expect when I got home.
The hot weather and lack of rain has been tough on plants, so it was interesting to see which ones had weathered the drought best. With prospects of increasingly hot and dry summers, gardeners may have to be flexible and choose species better adapted to these conditions.
The other problem coming into August can be a lack of colour – many plants reached their flowering zenith in July and there can be a bit of a slump in the garden now.
The ground is dry, many perennials are putting their remaining efforts into seed production, and there is a natural lull between now and the next phase of beautiful flowers that arrive in September and October – when early autumn flowering anemones, rudbeckias and sedums come into their own.
So here are the stars of the August garden, the troupers which have soldiered on through the drought and will keep your plot colourful throughout this month and beyond.
Agapanthus or African lilies are the glamour plants of August – luxurious, flamboyant flower heads atop lush sturdy stems.
‘Northern Star’ is a relatively new cultivar with spherical heads of flowers the deep blue of the Aegean sea. It’s also one of the more hardy agapanthus but could do with a protective mulch in colder areas.
If you’d like something even more dramatic, search out ‘Black Magic’ whose almost black buds open to a dark inky purple.
They’re good in well-drained sunny positions but try to keep moist after flowering to help buds develop for next year.
Repeat flowering roses can start to emerge again in late August, but one that seems to keep going all summer long is Rosa ‘Ballerina.’
It’s a modern shrub rose which has lots of small single pink flowers held aloft in trusses, a bit like a hydrangea. It makes up for its lack of great fragrance with profuse flowering, and I have found it disease-resistant and trouble-free.
Hardy geraniums or cranesbills are excellent ground-cover plants and one of the best performers is Geranium ‘Rozanne.’ I know I’ve mentioned her a few times before but it’s worth listing her attributes once again – she’s drought-tolerant and has shrugged off the recent lack of water with aplomb, producing even more of her blue-violet blossoms.
Forming a nice rounded mound of light marbled green foliage, this plant keeps flowering profusely until autumn and will do well in most situations.
When lavender finishes flowering, Perovskia or Russian sage takes up the reins and produces an equally beautiful purple haze of flowers with aromatic silvergrey foliage. It loves the sunshine and dry sandy soil. I’ve seen it planted en masse beside a busy road which indicates its tolerance to pollution, and it will also do well beside the sea. You can prune it quite hard in late spring if it’s getting a bit floppy. The most commonly grown variety is ‘Blue Spire’ but there is also a dwarf version called ‘Little Spire’ which would be best if your space is limited. Salvias are another great choice for bridging the flower gap during this month. They’re happy in sunny, dry conditions, and if you keep deadheading and giving them a regular liquid feed they will keep on flowering. ‘Jezebel’ is a choice cultivar with bright red flowers which are a beacon for bees and butterflies. Other plants that will keep your garden in bloom are Verbena bonariensis, cosmos, echinaceas and dahlias – all of which greeted me with smiling flowers on my return.