Susie’s Garden
Enjoy the glories of early autumn with our expert as she gives us a seasonal tour of her flower and vegetable gardens…
Throughout the year I pick bunches of flowers to take to friends. Each one is like a portrait of the changing seasons. The bouquet in this picture is a distillation of our garden in autumn with its velvety red heleniums, bright purple verbena, silvery sea holly, double white feverfew and sugar-pink Japanese anemones.
Japanese anemones look delicate but they make good cut flowers. It’s usually recommended to “condition” them by dipping the cut stems in boiling water for a few seconds, but I don’t do this and they still last well for me.
When these tall anemones are backlit by the autumn light they look very beautiful. The only word of caution is that they are great spreaders, so only plant them where there’s plenty of space.
Other plants that are flowering at the moment are the amazing, huge cardoon thistles, the feathery bottlebrushes of purple-leaved bugbane (Cimicifuga) and the sedums. All these plants are fantastic for insects, and the sedums in particular are absolutely covered in bees and butterflies.
There are insects aplenty in the veg garden too, attracted by the bright orange calendulas. These are still flowering well thanks to David deadheading them regularly.
We have so many runner beans that we have to think of different ways of eating them, such as cooking them in a cheese sauce. The first frost will finish off the plants, so we have to enjoy them while we can. We are getting towards the end of the tomato harvest too but these have been fantastic this year.
So I pause and savour these autumn days of harvest and rich, warm colours.