The garden in November
Kari-Astri Davies is persevering with chrysanthemums and taking special care of her tender favourites
THE SMELL OF wet earth and mouldering leaves pervades the wilder copse at the end of the garden. I will open up the compost bins and see if last year’s leaf mould is ready to use. The rich, dark-chocolate-coloured compost, added year-on-year as a mulch to the wood bed, should eventually build up soil in which special woodland plants can thrive.
Autumn colour
The scent of bruised chrysanthemum leaves is so evocative of late autumn. In the past, I have tried growing older hardy cottage garden favourites, generally known as Korean and rubellum chrysanthemums. Those I chose looked stiff and uncomfortable in the garden borders and did not prosper.
In her book Cottage Garden Flowers, Margery Fish suggested growing taller chrysanthemum cultivars, such as white, flushed-pink, single ‘Innocence’, through or supported by shrubs in borders, but admits her pairings were not always successful. Last year, I decided to reacquaint myself with growing chrysanthemums; this time, for the cutting patch in the veg plot. Beguiled by autumnal shades of gold, bronze and rusted red, I ordered a few plugs of fancier tender chrysanthemums. By early November, there were a few desultory flowers, mostly on ‘Allouise Orange’: not a resounding success.
This year, I came across a number of specialist nurseries selling the hardier cottage garden varieties and decided to try a couple for cutting as flower sprays.
‘Doctor Tom Parr’ takes me back to a long-gone walled-garden nursery in Sussex. They were selling up and invited visitors to dig up any plants they fancied. As fresh-dug trophies were presented, the bundles of foliage and roots were priced. ‘Doctor Tom Parr’ was one of these. It is a sport of an old French chrysanthemum: deep-rose ‘Anastasia’. The petals of the small pom-pom flowers are bronzy pink; each just tipped with gold.
‘Mei-Kyo’ apparently means ‘treasure of Kyoto’, and it was introduced from Japan in the 1950s. The button flowers are lilac-pink. ‘Emperor of China’, is an older cultivar, with subtle pink-shaded, spidery flowers. Late into flower and lax in growth, the leaves take on red tints in the autumn.
“The spirits of the air live on the smells Of fruit; and joy, with pinions light, roves round The gardens, or sits singing in the trees”
William Blake, ‘To Autumn’
Container plants
As many gardeners do, I fell for Chinese woodlander Disporum longistylum ‘Night Heron’; a selection made by US plantsman Dan Hinckley. In favourable conditions, this elegant plant, with purple-flushed emerging shoots and foliage, can grow to approximately 40in (1m) tall. I had it tucked in the wood bed, but, every year, spring frosts felled the substantial emerging shoots, weakening the plant. This year, it was hit twice, even though it was covered. I admitted
“why so swift despair! There yet will be Warm noons, the honey’d leavings of the year, Hours of rich musing, ripest autumn’s core, And late-heap’d fruit, and falling hedge-berry”
Edward Dowden, ‘Later Autumn Song’
defeat, took it out and put it in a pot. It much preferred the cushier growing conditions.
I had a few more potted, shady-plant problems. Rather than keep them in individual pots, I have put them all together in a bigger planter. Semi-evergreen ‘Night Heron’ has been joined by luscious begonia ‘Cool Breeze Emerald’: the large, crinkled purple leaves have a fascinating green sheen. A tender evergreen New Zealand button fern, Pellaea rotundifolia provides a low cascade of foliage. The flowing, fresh green blades of deciduous Japanese grass Hakonechloa macra lift the darker foliaged plants.
This combination is still looking good, but as we move deeper into November, the frequency of frosts is likely to increase. The pot will be put into an unheated greenhouse over winter, and I shall look forward to a mighty unfurling of dramatic disporum foliage next spring.
During November, I will be doing some tidying in the garden, removing and composting spent annuals and biennials. As the month progresses, perennials will be cut back, but generally not to the ground.
This will provide some protection for plants over winter and material for insects and other creatures to make of what they will. Grasses will be left alone. The main tidy-up will be in spring as the garden comes to life again.