Garden News August 23

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August 23, 2014

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Secrets of success with

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HERBS FOR WINTER

TOUGH CLEMATIS

Devon-bred varieties ideal for UK gardens

Plant some

colour this weekend!

Copy Carol's late summer border now Choose unusual plants for flowers Create a vibrant patio pot

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Plant some

colour

this weekend!

Don’t just go for the usual suspects – ring the changes with some of these beautiful late flowerers! nobody wants the colour in their garden to fizzle out in late summer, especially when there’s a Bank Clare Holiday weekend Foggett ahead that you’ll want your garden EDITOR to look good for! The problem is that this time of year can be tricky in terms of keeping the flowers coming.

Late-flowering agapanthus ‘Loch Hope’

6 Garden News / August 23 2014

If, like me, your garden has lots of earlier flowering things such as hardy geraniums, aquilegias, catmint or roses, you may look around now and see a sea of green stretching out before you – I know I am! It’s a particular problem this year beause everything seems to have gone over much more quickly than normal.

The other thing that makes late summer colour difficult is that many of the plants you see recommended for flowers now – for example ‘prairie’ daisies such as helenium, echinacea and rudbeckia – aren’t the daintiest plants in the world so need a big garden, especially as they look their best in big groups.

So what’s to be done if you want to pack your garden with colour but haven’t got acres of space and don’t want to go down the ‘prairie’ route? My friend Phil Clayton

Ornamental pomegranate, Punica granatum nana Garden World Images

also has a small garden but no shortage of bright, vibrant colour.

When I visited it at the weekend – it looked a treat! He works for the Royal Horticultural Society and knows his plants inside out so while I was there I picked his brains for the best plants and unusual choices for colour now.

Most important is a backdrop of flowering shrubs – a group of plants that tends to get overlooked as everyone races about filling their gardens with swathes of prairie perennials. Turn to page 10 for nine of the best, all in flower right now in Phil’s garden.

Then look to perennials for

GAP Photo

“Don’t be afraid of yellow if you want late summer colour!”

Tina Primmer

Tina Primmer from Poppy Cottage, Cornwall

My favourite plant of all time for late flowers is Allium pulchellum. It’s the ugly duckling of the plant world for much of the year but it is about to flower right now. Its flowers are like an explosion of sparkling fireworks and we use them to edge the path in front of the cool border.

The borders in the sunken garden are 76m long and 3.5m wide (250x12ft) and they are separated into garden ‘rooms’

with different colour themes. The first is full of white, cool colours and the second (left) is ‘in your face’ colour. Garden visitors come to us and say their gardens are finishing by the end of July. I think one of the reasons is that a lot of people say they don’t like yellow flowers. But if you don’t have any you miss out on heleniums, rudbeckias, dahlias and ginger lilies, which flower now.

And you can have cooler, pastel colours at this time of year too. Phlox and lobelias are in flower now and we’ve weaved purple thalictrum ‘Hewitt’s Double’ through one bed.

I’m a great believer in Chelsea

chopping plants to get later flowers. In fact the rabbits do it for a lot of the plants here! Only chop half of a plant so that you get two different flowering seasons from the same plant.

I grow lilies in pots so they can be sunk into gaps where early summer plants such as Oriental poppies have been cut back. They grow better in pots because the bulbs aren’t as prone to slug and snail damage as they are if left in the ground over winter.

• Poppy Cottage Garden, Ruan High Lanes, Truro, Cornwall, TR2 5JR is open Sunday-Tuesday 2-5.30pm until October 10 2014, www.poppycottagegarden.co.uk

Darkly dramatic salvia ‘Amistad’

Shutterstock Garden World Images

Rudbeckia fulgida deamii

The best choice for tonnes of cheerful yellow flowers in a small space, reaching just 60cm (24in) tall.

Kniphofia rooperi will continue into autumn

really vibrant shots of intense colour, but look a little harder for varieties that are a bit different.

Going out of your way to seek out the latest-flowering variety of something, or the most brilliantly colourful can make the world of difference. Take red hot pokers for example. Many have already

finished, but Kniphofia rooperi is only just starting and will flower into late autumn on impressive 1.2m (4ft) plants. Lots of agapanthus have long gone over, but choose late flowering ‘Loch Hope’ or ‘Windsor Grey’ and you’re laughing. And if I’d chosen geranium ‘Rozanne’ instead of the varieties I am growing that finished ages ago, I’d still be enjoying flowers! It seems to flower for ever and in fact, seems to get better as summer goes on.

Erodium are also good for colour now and are closely related to geraniums. Phil recommends Erodium manescavii which is one

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Red hot pokers

Choose the deciduous varieties that flower in late summer and autumn and are hardier than the evergreen kinds.

Salvia leucantha

This bushy sub-shrub has downy stems and leaves and fuzzy purple and white flowers held in arching sprays.

Erodium manescavii has bright, magenta flowers of the bigger ones at 45cm (18in) tall. It has magenta-purple flowers.

Salvias are super for late summer interest. Among the perennial kinds, salvia ‘Amistad’ is a newlyintroduced variety that’s taking gardens by storm. Velvety purple

flowers emerge from black calyces on equally dark stems. It’s around 1m (3ft 3in) tall and has proved hardy over the last two winters in Phil’s Cambridgeshire garden.

Continu es ove r the pag e August 23 2014 / Garden News 7

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quick fixes for the weekend!

There are lots of small things you can do to make a big difference this Bank Holiday.

Get stuck in for a garden to be proud of !

Make your patio perfect!

1

Reposition your pots

Move your pots around to make sure your biggest and best containers are in the most prominent place. Think of it the same way as moving furniture to freshen up the living room! You could also discover new eyecatching colour combinations. Colours opposite on the colour wheel will provide bold clashes. Try pairing blue flowers with gold and yellow. Or if you want to have complementary coloured flowers, place pots of blue and mauve plants together.

Also, placing containers in front of large

26 Garden News / August 23 2014

evergreens will create a solid backdrop that makes the flowers stand out. Place scented plants close to seating areas so you make the most of the fragrance and use small containers as makeshift table centrepieces to enhance a bit of al fresco dining! Don’t forget the value of evergreens for making a patio look lush and inviting and for giving pots an instant spruce up. Trailing ivies are always cheap and available and make great emergency gap fillers in pots, providing a final flourish of colour for summer and looking good in autumn and winter too.

2 Give pots a pick-me-up

Check containers for signs of trouble. Hoik out any weeds or tree seedlings that were hiding among containers grouped together. Use a sharp knife to sever tree seedlings that have developed strong stems. Remove dead heads, plus yellowing and diseased leaves from pelargoniums, roses, and bedding plants to stop fungal disease spreading.

Clear the base of each plant of fallen leaves too. Lift up each pot and if it feels light, the plant needs watering. Add a liquid general fertiliser to your watering can when you water to give the plants a boost, or use a tomato fertiliser for summer-flowering plants.

Tidy lawns and borders

3 Get your cushions out!

This is a bit of a ‘girlie’ job, but if you’ve got your patio looking great with neatly-swept slabs and colourful pots, you may as well go the whole hog and dress your furniture so it looks the part!

Cushions and throws, umbrellas in case it’s sunny, tablecloths and table decorations such as vases of cut flowers straight from the garden and candles or lanterns for the evening – all help conjure up that ‘al fresco’, Mediterranean dining feeling, as if we British do it all the time! Get your cushions out of the cupboard and decorate your ‘outdoor room’ for a barbecue this weekend that your guests will remember.

your lawn an 4 Give instant boost

Add fertiliser to your grass after mowing to green it up quickly. Apply a granular fertiliser such as Aftercut to the lawn to give a quick burst of readily-available nutrients.

Then keep mowing your lawn on a high setting little and often and it should stay green for the rest of summer.

your 5Reshape border edges

Make a crisp edge along the perimeter of your lawn and it will give the garden an instant pick-me-up. If perennial plants are flopping over the edges, cut them back to inside the lawn or reshape the lawn to make the border bigger. It will save on mowing time.

Lay a hosepipe along the edge of your lawn, then cut along it to create a curvy shape. Flick soil away from the edge of the lawn towards your beds to create a strongly defined edge.

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6 Snip flowerheads off weeds

Stop perennial weeds from seeding in your borders by cutting off the flowerheads before they get a chance to set seed. Tall perennials can remain hidden in a well-planted border, but they make themselves more obvious as they start to flower. If you can’t get to the weeds without forking them up, just cut the flowerheads off as far down the plant as you can to stop them spreading and help them blend into the border without being noticed by nosy neighbours!

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