Late-season colour
The colours in the summer garden deepen towards autumn. Those dahlias, such as the tall Dahlia ‘Admiral Rawlings’ ( that come in shades of darkest crimson and purple, are invaluable but the hot pinks of dahlias ‘Roxy’, ‘Fascination’ and ‘Winston Churchill’, as well as Salvia involucrata ‘Bethellii’ and Salvia greggii ‘ Pink Preference’ stop everything looking too glum. There are blues from Perovskia ( and Phlox paniculata ‘Blue Paradise’. These have very different needs. Perovskia likes hot and dry conditions, but the phlox prefer cool and damp. If you want to buck the growing conditions, as I have done for years, you have to be prepared to spot water the plants that can’t take the heat. A heavy mulch after spring rain can help to keep a plant going in spite of adverse conditions. But where phlox might make it, hydrangeas probably wouldn’t. This kind of un-neighbourly gardening is less green than I would hope to be. I plan to try harder in the new plot.
Kniphofia are not acceptable to everyone. One client screamed and made us remove the offenders we planted. But there are pokers and pokers. The old cottage garden favourite Kniphofia uvaria may be a bit coarse, but the slender yellow ‘Little Maid’ is desirable and I like the delicate coral of ‘Jenny Bloom’ and ‘Lord Roberts’. Latest and grandest of all the kniphofias is the evergreen K. rooperi ( a last exclamation mark to signal the passing of another gardening season. All plants that provide vertical accents are an addition to any planting, and pokers flower all summer, so why not love them?
On my limey Cotswold soil the spindle berries thrive. I am happy with the ordinary Euonymus europaeus, but I also have the showier Euonymus europaeus ‘Red Cascade’ (
and the strange Euonymus alatus with leaves that flame in the autumn. In the new, much smaller garden, where there is only room for one bush, I may go for ‘Red Cascade’ as its berries are spectacular for picking. The spindles are passengers all summer, so they are not for prominent places, or gardens where space is short.
On either side of the path, next to the north wall of what was once the kitchen garden, I have had the luxury of the space to trial plants. A generous gift of irises from Dan Pearson were planted there until they flowered. Seedling hellebores were lifted to grow on and then selected for rounded petals or desirable colours. In the new garden space will be far more limited, so when we move we are planning to take on an allotment, as well as the new garden. I will probably use some of that extra space as a test ground or for bulking up plants. When you move house, gardening friends are always generous, so having a reserve plot for fillers is a great asset.
I have enjoyed creating an experimental grass border ( at the Old Rectory, but it was much harder work than I thought it would be. The Sporobolus heterolepis was lovely in November, but less lovely by the time it had seeded everywhere in the spring.
Our new garden will have a small reminder of the rectory’s apple orchard ( as our new place is surrounded by damson and apple trees. The house is earlier than the Old Rectory, so it does not seem to be a garden that will suit prairie or exotic planting. The grass there is perfection for the kind of meadow that I never managed to achieve here, so I will major in a meadow. With apple trees to the north end of it, it will never be as shaded as the current orchard meadow so if time permits I will plant out my favourite species Crocus tommasinianus and blue Anemone blanda so they will flower next spring. The pretty Rudbeckia triloba ( is another plant I will definitely want to repeat in the new garden.