Summer Border Blues or Late Season Flower Power?
Are you one of the many gardeners who arrive back from their summer holiday to a garden which looks tired and past its best?  The grass needs a trim and edging of course, which always improves the look of any garden, but the flower borders have lost their early season vibrancy and look dull and spent.  If so you have the summer border blues.

Two recent surveys may well hold the key to this all too familiar scenario.  The first found that we are indeed a nation of gardeners, spending in excess of £5billion annually on our gardens, with 95% of all plant purchases taking place between Good Friday and Whitsun Monday.  The second survey found (not surprisingly) that we prefer to buy our plants in flower, to ensure the correct variety, colour, or as often happens, on an impulse.  If we put the two survey results together then the reason for the lack of late summer and autumn colour in the garden becomes glaringly obvious!  Spring and early summer are the seasons when most effort is expended in the garden.  We replace winter losses, work the soil and are tempted by all the delights that the garden centres and specialist nurseries have to offer.  By the end of May our thoughts turn more to enjoying the fruits of the early season labours as the evenings draw out, the borders fill with scent and colour and the vegetable garden produces its first offerings.  Work in the garden reduces substantially, usually to a quick mow once a week and a bit of dead-heading.

If this sounds like your garden, it need not be like this. It is perfectly possible to continue to have colourful borders through late summer and autumn by changing your buying habits and carefully selecting plants offering late season flower power.  The first thing to do is to note where and when the colour gaps appear in your borders (or try to remember from last year!) and then visit a good garden centre, specialist nursery or plant fair each month from July to October, buying only a few choice plants each visit to fill the gaps you have identified.  Additionally, next spring, try to look for early season plants that have something else to offer later in the year. It could be colourful berries or attractive stems, unusual bark or a wonderful display of autumn leaf colour.  It is also important to remember that by deadheading early season plants they will often produce a second flush of flowers in August and September.  This is particularly true of such plants as Astrantia, Campanula, Geranium, Geum and Polemonium. 

Many of the herbaceous perennials coming to their peak in August belong to the daisy family.  Aster, Coreopsis,  Helenium, and Rudbeckia will all flower from late July to October.  Aster x frikartii varieties are mildew resistant and Aster x frikartii ‘Mönch’ and Aster x frikartii ‘Wundar von Stäfa’ are two Michaelmas Daisies to look out for, with their stunning lavender blue flowers.  Helenium, by contrast, offer the fiery colours - reds, oranges and yellows - and are particularly attractive to bees.  Helenium ‘Meranti’ is a promising new red form, Helenium ‘Zimbelstern’ is a good tall yellow variety and Helenium ‘Kupferzwerg’ is coppery orange.  They are easy to grow in most ordinary garden soils and better garden centres and specialist nurseries will offer a good selection.  Anemone japonica and Penstemon are both popular plants for late summer, readily available from all garden centres in a huge range of colours.  As a general rule the smaller flowered Penstemon varieties turn out to be the hardier types and over-winter more successfully in colder areas.  Cut them back in spring when you see new growth appearing at the stem base. 

Crocosmia are a common site on banks and in coastal gardens around Wales.  They are at their peak in late August and September, offer upright, sword-like foliage and the modern hybrids are far less coarse than some of the older forms.  Seek out Crocosmia ‘George Davison’ (often mis-spelled Davidson!), a lovely, soft yellow Montbretia which is tolerant of our damp winters. Crocosmia ‘Emberglow’ has red flowers and thrives on poorer soil whilst Crocosmia ‘Emily McKenzie’ has very large orange flowers with red flushes and was raised in Northumberland, so is totally hardy. 

More unusual perennials are the Turtleheads, Chelone and Chelonopsis, which will bloom until the first frosts.  They have broad, dark green leaves and tubular, lipped flowers, resembling turtleheads, in purple-pink or white in Chelone glabra.  Thalictrum delavayi ‘Hewitt’s Double’ is another choice plant for late summer with double, dark purple flowers like clouds of Gypsophila.  This Meadow Rue enjoys peaty soils and cool, moist conditions in part shade. 

September sees the Red Hot Pokers, or Kniphofia, in full flower.  These tall, architectural plants enjoy well drained, poor or stony soils and associate well with leaves that are beginning to turn yellow or red.  Kniphofia rooperi has enormous, round, orange and yellow pokers until November.  Try it with Verbena bonariensis, itself a cult plant in recent years.  Although not reliably perennial it usually re-appears as seedlings but beware - in some mild districts it is becoming a bit of a pest.  Grasses also have a place in the autumn garden and will hold interest right through the winter, looking particularly good in frost.  Some of the most architectural belong to the Miscanthus species.  Miscanthus sinensis forms usually have stiff, upright growth with large silvery flower plumes in autumn.  Miscanthus sinensis ‘Pünktchen’ is a good variegated form for a smaller garden, whilst Miscanthus sinensis ‘Malepartus’ has rich reddish-purple flowers and will grow to 2m (6ft).

The autumn bulbs should not be neglected as they offer colour right through to November.  Cyclamen hederifolium, Colchicum speciosum and Nerine are all very easy plants and bulk up when happy to form large patches.  They complement and will under plant some of the more colourful autumn shrubs whose leaves turn as the strength of the sun declines.  Especially good late in the year are Acer palmatum, Berberis thunbergii, Callicarpa japonica, Cotinus coggygria, Euonymus alatus and Fothergilla.  Careful selection of one or two trees, such as Amelanchier lamarckii, the Snowy Mespilus or Parrotia persica, which likes our moist soil can complete the effect and extend the season in your garden right through until late November.  Gone are the summer border blues!

© Richard Cain, Penlan Perennials

HARDY GERANIUMS

Gardening some 700ft up, on a north facing slope, means that the plants I grow have to be ultra hardy to survive the conditions, especially during cold snaps which often come early in the year just as new growth is emerging.  I am always on the look out for plants which are reliably perennial, pest and predator free and resistant to diseases.  If these plants are also low maintenance, evergreen, colourful and scented they are additional bonuses! Hardy Geraniums meet all these criteria and are 'bullet-proof' border perennials.

Why ‘hardy’ geranium?  Well, this term was coined to distinguish them from tender geraniums, correctly known as Pelargoniums, which are related and together with Geraniums and Erodiums form the plant genus known as Geraniaceae.  Pelargoniums do not usually survive our winters unless grown in favoured mild coastal districts or brought indoors during the coldest months.

When I started working with plants over 25 years ago, I soon discovered Hardy Geraniums, for all the reasons above.  They are untouched by slugs, snails or rabbits and aphids and whitefly give them a miss.  Several species are evergreen, some have scented leaves and many flower throughout the year, especially if given a light tidy after the first set of flowers fade.  There is no pruning to perform, they are easy to grow, being tolerant of a wide range of soil types and garden situations and they only need the old foliage to be cleared during the spring tidy. They will give you many years of trouble-free gardening and it is no wonder they are known in gardening circles as ‘Queen of the Border’ and regularly voted amongst the top five perennial plants.  It is these qualities, together with their versatility, their ability to mix well with other herbaceous perennials and to blend with virtually any colour scheme that make them the backbone of many mixed borders.

Most geraniums are clump forming in habit, the alpine species often no more than 15x15cm (6”x6”) but the majority around 60x60cm (2ftx2ft), making them ideal border plants as they are compact and tidy, with flowering stems rising clear of the foliage.  One or two species produce no basal leaves at all, with the flowering stems carrying the leaves.  These plants tend to spread more, making excellent ground cover and often have the bonus of vivid autumn leaf colour.  A typical example of this type is Geranium sanguineum, which is a native plant and has the common name of ‘bloody cranesbill’, referring to the shape of the seed head and the ability of the leaves to staunch bleeding wounds (not as most people believe, a reference to the blood red flower colour!).

Hardy Geraniums are found in all the main continents and new species are still being discovered in the more remote and inaccessible areas of the world.  Of the 200 or so species and over 600 named hybrids and forms, about 10% have white or nearly white flowers and the remainder range in colour from the palest pink to the darkest violet-blue.  Many flowers are veined, netted or overlaid with another colour, others change colour as they age and a select few are double-flowered, notably in the Geranium pratense family.  These meadow cranesbills were once a common site in wild-flower meadows but are now largely restricted to hedgerows.  There are no yellow flowers and no species (yet discovered) with scented flowers.  Geranium flowers are fairly uniform and simple, normally having five petals and sepals, symmetrically arranged and either bowl or funnel shaped.  Geranium phaeum and Geranium monacense species are the exception here as their flowers are reflexed.  Many modern hybrids have been introduced in the last twenty years.  Some are chance seedlings discovered in gardens, others are naturally occurring cross-pollinated hybrids such as Geranium x magnificum, but by far the largest number have been bred by enthusiastic amateur gardeners trying to produce an ever longer flowering season, larger flowers or better colours in leaf or flower.  Notable amongst these is Alan Bremner, working in the Orkney Islands, whose hybridisation programme has been responsible for many excellent new cultivars, Geraniums ‘Nora Bremner’, ‘Joy’, ‘Dilys’ and ‘Patricia’ to name but a few.

Another asset of many Geraniums is their leaves.  Evergreen species, such as G. macrorrhizum, G. monacense, G. nodosum and G. phaeum look good throughout the year and their leaves are often mottled with dark brown markings or are very glossy.  Others are herbaceous but when in growth have soft velvety leaves or silvery markings (G. argenteum) or leaves which are completely red or brown (G. sessiliflorum subsp. novae-zelandiae ‘Nigricans’ - such a long name for a tiny plant). Many leaf forms are heavily dissected or intricately lobed and one or two of the species have variegated leaves, with splashed or blotched yellow or white variegation.  Geranium renardii is particularly noted for its textured leaves, resembling sage, hence its common name of Sage-leaf Geranium.  One or two species such as G. malviflorum and G. tuberosum are summer dormant so often come into leaf in late autumn, flowering in very early spring and then are gone.  They are both blue flowered and look very effective when placed among the daffodils.

Most Geraniums are easy to propagate by division.  In Wales this is best done in early spring, although divisions may need watering in dry summers as the roots are often very fibrous.  Feeding is seldom required, although enriching the soil around the planting hole is beneficial.  If you need several plants then clumps can be divided into small plantlets, although these are best potted up and grown on before planting out in late summer.  Cuttings are seldom successful as the stems of most species are inflorescences and will not root.  As always there are exceptions to the rule and G. sanguineum and G. wallichianum will often root if the stems chosen are in good condition and growing well.  Seed germinates well if sown soon after harvesting and is a quick way of producing lots of plants. Geraniums have an explosive dispersal mechanism so care must be taken to gather the seed as it turns browny-black, but before it is ejected.  Hand collecting every couple of days is best and this method explains the high cost of commercial geranium seed.  It should also be remembered that seed from hybrids will not come true (many hybrids are also sterile and will not set any seed at all).  This is where the excitement starts, as some of the seed will resemble the parents but in amongst the seedlings you may find an exciting new colour break, a taller (or shorter) plant, one with interesting coloured leaves or you never know.......the first ever yellow flower?!!

© Richard Cain,  Penlan Perennials