Ruislip & Eastcote & Northwood Gazette
Late summer show-offs
THERE’S MORE COLOUR TO COME FROM THE FINEST AUGUST-FLOWERING PLANTS
BY August the garden can sometimes feel a bit exhausted. We’ve enjoyed the fresh spring exuberance of bulbs and blossoms, and the flowering and fruiting of summer.
But if you haven’t packed up and gone away on holiday, there is still plenty more to come as the plant palette moves towards late summer.
These are special plants to include when planning your borders and planting schemes and they can be introduced now into areas that are looking a little lacklustre.
They can also be used to great effect in pots and containers, creating a colourful and joyful seasonal display. Here are my top 10 Augustflowering plants.
Echinacea ‘Cheyenne Spirit’ are seed-grown coneflowers that come in a variety of spicy colours including yellow, oranges, reds and purples.
Coneflowers can be susceptible to fungal rot, the result of overwatering, so treat them mean to keep them keen amid plenty of sunshine.
Lobelia ‘Starship Scarlet’ is a showy perennial that stands to attention with upright spikes of bright scarlet flowers on dark burgundy stems and bronzy foliage.
Lobelias like moist soil in sun or partial shade and will keep flowering until October.
Penstemon ‘Arabesque Apple Blossom’ is a very pretty variety with soft creamy white flowers just tinged with pink. Penstemons are no prima donnas and will work hard for you – deadhead them to extract their maximum value.
Verbena rigida is much more compact and bushy than the popular Verbena bonariensis.
Usually grown as an annual, it will survive in milder coastal areas and
the bright purple fragrant flowers are loved by bees and butterflies.
Coreopsis ‘Double the Sun’ is a sprinkling of golden sunshine for your patio. You’ll enjoy lots of shaggy double yellow flowers for long periods from spring to late summer. It’s a perennial and does best in full sunshine, but watch that
it doesn’t dry out.
Impatiens, or busy Lizzies, are old reliables and they are high-performance, low-maintenance plants. Useful for brightening up partially shaded areas, grow in large blocks for maximum impact to line pathways or cram into window boxes.
Dahlias come to the fore in late summer and there’s no shortage of varieties.
Single blooms are easier for pollinators to access and their vibrant colours can be just as dazzling as the plumped up cactus or peony dahlias. ‘Bright Eyes’ is one such with purple pink flowers that have a bright yellow centre.
Liatris spicata, or gayfeather, is a pretty prairie perennial with mauve bottlebrush flowers.
‘Kobold Original’ is a compact version that is a good way of introducing vertical interest without the need for staking. It does best in welldrained soil in full sunshine.
Veronicastrum ‘Album’ is a tall, elegant perennial with slim wands of white flowers. I grow it up through Hydrangea ‘Annabelle’, the vertical accents piercing through the white domes of the hydrangea.
Surprisingly self-supporting for such a tall plant, it prefers moist soil in sunshine.
Erigeron ‘Sea Breeze’ is sometimes known as fleabane but I prefer its other common name, beach daisy.
You’ll see this on your holidays here in southern coastal areas – it’s a carpet perennial with thick green leaves and tons of pink daisy-like flowers with big yellow centres.
Highly floriferous, it’s suitable for well-drained areas such as rock gardens or even growing up through pavement cracks and in crevices.