School’s are back, and there is a definite hint of autumn in the air with the start of leaves turning. With the extreme heat in August and managing to escape to Cornwall for a few weeks, the garden has had to cope with minimal care, but its survived and after the recent rains is looking refreshed and ready for autumn and I’m ready to get back out there. There is so much to do at this time of year.
My highlight of the garden this month is the Aster × frikartii ‘Mönch’. This is an absolute stalwart in my garden. It copes with the dry soil, minimal care and flowers for weeks on end. It has been flowering for a few weeks already and will continue until the first frosts. It is incredibly easy to propagate, so after buying the original plants a few years back I have propagated multiple plants to help flow across the garden. By having the same plant in 4 or 5 places, this helps draw the eye down the flowerbeds.
September is a great time to look at what has worked and what hasn’t in the garden and start planning on moving plants that haven’t thrived. Sometimes it can feel a bit daunting to move plants around, but my theory is, if it isn’t thriving where it is, give it another chance somewhere else in the garden and it might do better. I have previously moved a Daphne bholua ‘Jacqueline Postill’, infamous for not liking to be moved, mine would have died if I had left it, it did sulk for a year but now seems to like its new location and is getting better each year. Last year I bought a rhododendron ‘Luteum’ which I planted near the house so I could enjoy the scent, but it just gets too much sun where it was, so I have relocated it down to the far end of the garden, near a camellia. Upon digging it up, the roots had grown little since planting it, and they were bone dry, so after a good soak in a bucket for an hour and digging in some manure and compost, I’m hoping it will enjoy its new location and flourish over the coming years. I have just noticed new growth is being nibbled by vine weevil so nematodes have been ordered. (Gardening is often about patience, constant learning and being in for the long haul to see the results).
This month garden centres fill their shelves with spring bulbs, narcissi, tulips, iris to name a few. After the success of my Iris Reticulata ‘Harmony’ last year, I have bought more. I was hoping that last years would flower again but it seems that the squirrel had different ideas about this, although I had read somewhere you should plant fresh iris bulbs every year for these spring displays, so along with some Gladiolus Byzantium I’ve started to build up my bulb stock for next year. A few more visits to Longacres are needed to purchase tulips and alliums and I’m sure a few more different bulbs will be coming home too.
Whilst at Longacres this week, it was time to look at the chrysanthemum balls, which I purchase to pot up on the patio for autumn colour. I love these plants that are crammed with flowers and will flower until the first frosts by which time it will be time to plant the tulips ready for next spring.
My pots are always full but I’ll confess that after the success of the plants ordered whilst in lockdown this summer I’ve held off planting up the mumms until today. The agastache ‘Blue Fortune’ are still so full of flower that they have been moved into the flowerbeds with a good mulch of manure and compost to give them a boost. I love how the block planting gives them instant wow factor. These are borderline hardy, so it will depend on what kind of winter we have as to whether they survive. They are such a great plant for pollinators though that I have resigned myself to buying these annually if they don’t survive the winter. I dug in a load of manure when planting and will give them a good mulch of strulch and keep my fingers crossed for a mild winter.
September is a great month for planting as the soil is still warm enough for the roots to establish before winter and there isn’t the extreme heat from summer. My lupins that self-seeded weren’t the colour I was expecting so it was time to stock up on some Lupinus ‘The Chatelaine’ which were the first lupins I grew after my dad gave me some he had grown from seed. It’s great to get some back in the garden and they have been protected from slugs with a layer of strulch. Planting now will give them a head start in the spring.
After a look around the garden I was still needing a bit more colour so I purchased some mixed aster which will add a burst of colour into late autumn. I’m thinking I need to add a bit more pink in the mix to balance out all of those purples and you can’t go wrong with some delicate cyclamen to join the sedums that are also coming into flower now.
