The garden in July and August
As summer gets to its height, the garden is filling with blooms from buddleia to red hot pokers, gladioli and more. The colour palette is stronger, ranging from warm reds to rich blues. All are perfectly matched to warmer days and sunshine.
Late summer borders
The tawny bed was started in spring 2013 with the intention of providing late summer interest. Three Cornus ‘Midwinter Fire’ were planted as a backbone to the bed. At this time of year they’re sara Coleridge, ‘The Months’ uliginosa, bronze fennel, Digitalis lanata and D. ferruginea were planted for later flower power. As you’d expect, things have changed over three years. A beautiful Chionochloa rubra was moved to centre stage last year and took over, benignly enveloping all around it. Lovely as it is, this glossy shimmying mound of grass has been moved on. Planted in its stead is persicaria ‘Dikke Floskes’. I haven’t grown this Dutch selection with deep red 4ft flower spikes before. The rust-coloured Carex buchananii planted as a threesome started to dominate their section of the bed. They have now been reduced to one. I trim this and the greeney orange-tinted C. testacea into loose bumps in spring. This forestalls too much slumping mophead foliage overrunning the plants around them. The various brown-tinted digitalis aren’t reliably perennial so are on rolling replacement. I wouldn’t be without the bronzed spires rearing above their neighbours. Bees happily clamber in and out of the flowers guided by the lower petals, pollen discretely deposited on their backs. Some of the original crocosmia and kniphofia sulked and died. However, kniphofia ‘Tawny King’ with soft orange and cream flowers proved a stayer. The latest to flower with me is K. rooperi, a marsh dweller in its native habitat of Cape Province in South Africa. On dryish soil it still makes decent clumps from which emerge huge
“HotJuly brings cooling showers, Apricots and gillyflowers.