Just can’t get enough of gem
The indestructable Sedums flower for weeks on end, turning deeper in colour to mix and match with the surrounding leaf colour changes or flowers of their neighbours.
The elegant deep pink cups of Schizostylis open, seemingly oblivious to the time of year, and stay fresh and abundant for many weeks. These flowers create an alarming, but equally pleasing clash with the fallen autumn leaves and surrounding seed heads.
In all their autumn glory
SEDUMS are perennially one of the most invaluable of all autumn border plants. They provide a distinctly fresh and crisp look to a garden which is generally starting to fade, but yet they never look out of place for the time of year.
Their soft grey leaves, and typically deep pink (turning to red) flowers seem to blend in very well with the changing colours around them.
As they lose their yellowing leaves during November, the succulent stems dry out and retain their brown seed-heads throughout winter - these can be removed to allow the silvery shoots to come through in early spring.
This plant, although needing dividing around every four years, is extremely easy to grow - adapting to most situations, except those which are either very boggy or in very dry shade.
It’s the kind of style us like
SCHIZOSTYLIS is another very vibrant mid-autumn flowerer. This generally unremarkable grassy-leaved plant suddenly explodes into hot rosy pink spikes of warm trumpet-shaped blooms.
What is even more remarkable, is that well-established clumps will flower right through a mild late autumn and Christmas period, even into January. These semi-bulbous plants like a fertile damp soil in full sun and benefit from being divided every year, if possible.
The only other care needed is a general tidy-up of the old foliage during February to allow the new growth to come through. During summer drought, give them a good soak twice a week.
Your garden could do with a lift
LIFT and divide tired and congested perennials while the soil is still warm and moist. Most perennials benefit beautifully from this operation every two to three years.
Discard the tired and woody central portions of the clump, keeping the young vigorous shoots and roots to replant into new clumps in well-prepared soil with plenty of mobile.
Bulbs that will turn you on in the future
PLANT bulbs in earnest, except for tulips which must wait until November to avoid the risk of fire-blight disease which thrives in warm soil.
DURING the summer, it will have become apparent that some roses are doing much better than others. Most of the reason for this tends to lie within the soil - those plants which are struggling will have tended to hit a ‘pan’ of solid sub-soil.
This problem can be rectified by lifting the whole shrub, breaking up the hard soil underneath and then adding plenty of organic matter ready for replanting.
Getting fruity has all gone to pot
NOW is the time to repot soft fruit grown in containers. The thornless blackberry springs to mind and if you are considering this into a larger container, then why not choose a large oak barrel to accommodate its hungry roots. Next year you will be rewarded.
Cut back to where they once belonged
ANY old stems that are cut back from herbaceous plants can be lain onto the ground or lawn and shredded by means of using a mower to speed up the process of composting them. Mix the clippings with autumn leaves and late grass clippings for great compost.
Be a follower of Chryst-ianity
CHRYSANTHEMUMS make for a real mass of autumn colour and can be introduced into a fading border quite spontaneously.
By doing this, you will introduce some instant blowsy colour which will combine well with the fading blooms of Hydrangeas and Sedums, as well as with the vivid late flowering Aster Monch.
They are easy to grow, flowering until the first sharp frosts. Plant them in a sunny position. After flowering, they can be cut back hard and will regrow in the normal way next year, amongst the other perennials. In spring, give them a good feed with fish blood and bone and do this again in early summer.
Later in summer, give them a couple of doses of high potash feed to help bring them on for the autumn. Colours most suited to cottage borders are the deep red varieties, along with pinks and whites.
Now is the time for grassing them up
FEED lawns with an organic root-building food, such as bonemeal by simply broadcasting the material over the grass.
This can be done in stages two or three times over, preferably before rain or it may be watered in afterwards. If you are cutting the lawn, be sure to cut on a high setting.
On a different note, small patches of lawn may be dug up to accommodate clumps of spring bulbs and then replanted afterwards.
Three of a kind for your cottage garden:
LIQUIDAMBAR is a very large-growing deciduous tree suitable for a very large garden. Its small sycamore -shaped leaves turn to bright red in a kind of scattered peppered fashion over a long period of several weeks. Plant in rich deep soil in dappled shade.
I guess you could call them ‘Hell in earth’
HELLEBORES which have self-seeded have usually reached a good size by now. Prepare their final planted positions, by digging in plenty of bulky home-made compost - preferably made from leaf mould.
Young plants can be planted into their final positions in dappled shade, close to the house where their winter colour can be appreciated when they flower in a few years time.
It can’t make it’s mind up
OCTOBER is expected to be a month of stark contrasts between dry and wet spells. Rather warm weather will tend to predominate, although there may be a tendency for cold air to try to invade from the north.
This may have more tendency to succeed later in the month, but may equally well arrive simply as cooler fresher weather.
ABELIA is a superb autumn-flowering shrub that stays compact and flowers for many weeks. Its masses of pale-pink tubular flowers, at first, rest against against glossy green foliage and then, later on, leaves turn to all manner of autumn shades.
NERINES (Guernsey Lilies) explode suddenly into a mass of bright candy-pink flowers this month, often most unexpectedly. Give these plants a fairly rich, but sandy, soil in full sun and with plenty of room and, once established, they will reward you.
