Discover the supporting cast
There are salvias galore that will flower until November
Japanese anemones make September borders sparkle, and once established, these elegant members of the buttercup family produce dark, straight stems, grey seed-pearl buds and simple saucershaped blooms. My favourite is A. hupehensis japonica ‘Pamina’ with bright-pink, semi-double flowers. Older cultivar ‘September Charm’ is very free flowering and its single rose-pink flowers have a green middle surrounded by a neat ring of golden stamens. ‘Honorine Jobert’ has single, pure-white flowers with golden stamens and dark foliage that looks lovely in dappled shade. Japanese anemones travel about, but they all look good popping up through hardy fuchsias such as ‘Mrs Popple’. Willowy Verbena bonariensis, rising in a cloud above vibrant dahlias such as postbox-red ‘Bishop of Llandaff’ or pumpkin-orange ‘David Howard’, will frame them with a purple haze while also supporting them. As with all slender plants, you’ll need a drift, but the ‘verbena from Buenos Aires’ is easy to raise from seed. The perfect butterfly landing stage, it self-seeds when happy. There are salvias galore that will flower until November. Tall, purpleblue ‘Amistad’ offers touches of black too, with dark stems and calyces. Salvias with small-lipped flowers, such as red ‘Royal Bumble’, red and white ‘Hot Lips’ and S. greggii ‘Lipstick’, can overwinter in warm, well-drained spots. New England asters, now named Symphyotrichum novae-angliae are butterfly magnets with clusters of pink and purple flowers. However, their foliage can look ragged by September, so plant in the middle or back of a border. Good forms include ‘Harrington’s Pink’, purple-flowered ‘Helen Picton’ and raspberry-pink ‘Andenken an Alma Pötschke’. Front of border asters with good foliage and thickly rayed purple flowers include A. amellus ‘King George’ and ‘Veilchenkönigin’ (‘Violet Queen’). Yellow daisies abound, spinning through the garden like a golden thread, and rudbeckias look good at every stage. Rudbeckia fulgida deamii with brown-centred, golden petals makes a wonderful front-of-border perennial next to a purple border phlox such as ‘Uspekh’, or with grey-blue bobbled succisella ‘Frosted Pearls’. All three are knee-high. And don’t forget hardy geraniums, which just bloom on and on (see p22).