The late late show
WE are all quite parochial in our outlook. Home is where the heart is and I take great delight in showing visitors from England (where I was born), my adopted home in County Wicklow, Republic of Ireland.
I’ve just had the most invigorating and pride-inducing weekend, rambling through the hills and hollows of the area, introducing fresh eyes to some of our more recent garden delights. Three days were spent visiting established, rejuvenated or brand new plots and seeing them through my visitors’ eyes.
Some, like Jimi Blake’s Hunting Brook, will be familiar to viewers of Gardeners’ World. His sister June Blake’s garden is equally renowned at home. The Irish National Botanic Gardens have installed talented gardener Seamus O’Brien to transform their satellite arboretum garden in Kilmacurragh, which was visited and much admired by Prince Charles on his recent Irish trip.
We ended up in one location which would provide many lessons for us gardeners who love colour. Patthana is a small garden in the village of Kiltegan, not too far from where the BBC drama Ballykissangel was shot.
Acclaimed artist TJ Maher uses his painter’s eye to create mid and late-summer pictures employing colourful herbaceous perennials. Over the past decade TJ has assembled a carefully selected orchestra of plants to sing out as other gardens begin to fade.
In mid-August the garden was bursting with joyful exuberance and will continue through to the end of September. Highlights for me included the very tall snapdragons in
delicious warm orange and pink colours towering at the back of borders. These are Potomac Dark Orange, available from chilternseeds. co.uk.
They combined beautifully with the primrose yellow verbascums and burnt orange heleniums. In the central bed there were clouds of light purple Thalictrum ‘Splendide’, Sanguisorba ‘Lilac Squirrel’ heavy with pink feathery blossoms, and a violet phlox emitting its beautiful scent, along with hosts of cheerful cosmos daisies.
The colour extravaganza continued with rich pink dahlias, coleus with flame-coloured foliage in pots which will be easily lifted indoors for winter, and some spicy orange Tagetes such as ‘Cinnabar’. Old reliables Geranium ‘Rozanne’ and ‘Anne Thompson’ scrambled through any available gaps.
Other plants TJ uses and recommends for this time of year are Eupatorium, Sedum and Verbena bonariensis, great for butterflies, Anemone ‘Honorine Jobert’, Veronicastrum and Nicotiana alata. Many of these will keep going strong until the end of September.
It’s not just about perennials, though. There are many interesting foliage plants such as the giant Tetrapanax to greet you in the courtyard entrance, as well as fatsias, trochodendron and aralia.
TJ’s gardening philosophy is one of respect for nature, eschewing chemical interventions, and encouraging birds, bees and butterflies to make themselves at home.
All this combines to make Patthana a garden which is at once exciting and serene, and a masterclass for us all in late summer planting.