Early autumn perennials
Autumn is in the air but far from fading quickly, my garden has a final fanfare of colour before fading slowly into winter. I crave colour at this time of year - lots of it - and while I’m not so partial to brilliant yellow and magenta pink earlier in the year, somehow in September it seems right. Perhaps it’s something to do with the light becoming more mellow - or just the fact that I want to hold on to the vibrancy of the living garden for as long as possible before it all goes dormant. I have designed the planting in my garden to be as seasonal as possible, with different plants coming into flower at different points in the year. The dahlias are a big late-summer colour hit, and I always grow pink and white cosmos from seed to plug the gaps - but there are also a handful of really good perennials that come back reliably year after year to ramp up the colour, and I look forward to welcoming them back like old friends each August and September.
Penstemon ‘Garnet’
Helenium ‘Sahin’s Early’
Rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’
Penstemon ‘Garnet’ is one of the longest flowering plants in the border, bringing bursts of colour to the garden from late June right into October and even November if you keep deadheading. In mid summer, its rounded clumps of magenta flowers were almost too overwhelming, and I picked lots of the flower spikes for the house, to thin the plants out. But now in September, I value it more than ever, as other plants are starting to fade. Penstemons are easy to grow in full sun or partial shade but can be short-lived and temperamental in cold weather, so they shouldn’t be cut back until new growth starts to show in April. They need a reasonably fertile, well-drained soil.
Rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’ dances across the brick-edged beds in my front garden, catching my eye from the windows above. I grow it with wispy Stipa tenuissima to stop it feeling clumpy and motionless, and it looks good next to blue-grey Teucrium fruticans. I have just bought three plants of another rudbeckia, ‘Henry Eilers’. With willowy stems and pale yellow, narrow-petalled flowers, it’s much more subtle than ‘Goldsturm’, and I have wanted to try it for ages. It will go in the front garden to mix with fading Cenolophium denudatum and other seed heads. Most rudbeckias need a sunny spot and a moisture-retentive soil. Mine wilt alarmingly in the summer if they are lacking in water, but soon pick up again when the rain comes.
Helenium ‘Sahin’s Early’ is a fantastic late summer perennial that will keep going into autumn if you deadhead after the first flush. There are many heleniums to choose from, in various shades of crimson, rusty-orange and yellow, but I think ‘Sahin’s Early’ is one of the best as it flowers for so long. This year mine started flowering at the end of June. I came back from a week away at the beginning of August (the very hot week) to find it had gone over, took all the spent flower heads off, and now it is flowering spectacularly again well into September. Heleniums are American prairie plants like rudbeckias and need moisture-retentive soil in full sun.
Rudbeckia ‘Henry Eilers’
Helenium ‘Sahin’s Early’
Leonorus leonotis
Leonorus leonotis is a shrubby, tender plant from South Africa with dramatic spikes of flowers in the most lovely burnt orange. Reaching up to 2m, it grows into a large shrub that will withstand temperatures down to about -5C in a sheltered spot - but in the UK it makes more sense to grow it in a large pot. I bought one recently at a plant fair and will keep it in a container that can be moved inside the greenhouse when it starts to get cold.
Symphyotrichum turbinellum used to be called Aster turbinellus but like all the asters has had its name changed recently. I love this tall, late-flowering aster for its airiness and movement. It has small, mauve-blue flowers, narrow leaves and purplish stems, so it presents a haze of colour rather than a bright block like some of the larger-flowered asters. I grew Aster x frikartii ‘Monch’ in my last garden which I loved too, but I had too many of them and sometimes it felt too powerful, its flowers such a strong, almost luminous lavender-blue. I think in small quantities, dotted about in a large border, it works well.
Anemone x hybrida ‘Elegans’
Sedum 'Herbstfreude’
Symphyotrichum turbinellum
Anemone x hybrida ‘Elegans’ is flowering beautifully in my shade border at the moment. There are lots of hybrids of these pretty Japanese anemones in shades of candy pink, darker pink and white, and they are easy and useful for the late summer and autumn garden. They are the type of plants that don’t need much cossetting - just give them a reasonably rich, moisture-retentive soil and they will be happy.
Sedum ‘Herbstfreude’ (also known as ‘Autumn Joy’ and recently renamed Hylotelephium ‘Herbstfreude’) is one of the most reliable and best sedums, a strong grower with dense clusters of flowers that start apple green in summer, changing to pale pink as they open and finally maturing to a rich dark pink in autumn. The brown seed heads are good too, right through winter. It needs full sun and a well-drained soil.
