The autumnal equinox has passed and our body calender starts looking towards the winter solstice for its next major landmark. Gardeners more than most understand that summer can be as much a feeling as a season and that certain plants coupled with favourable conditions can help extend those heady days right up until the clocks go back. Here's five of the best...
:: Rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’ – few plants catch the eye in the late summer-early autumn garden quite like the most popular of the rudbeckias. Arriving when most of the other showy perennials are fading, the rudbeckia’s bright yellow petals surround a deep brown centre that is almost black – 'black-eyed Susans' is one of the plant’s common names. A member of the aster family, all rudbeckia cultivars are derived from a prairie plant, and it is therefore within such planting schemes, alongside grasses and other tall perennials, that it looks its best – right through to Halloween. It’s also extremely robust and requires only cursory maintenance, a worthy holder of the RHS’s Award of Garden Merit (AGM).
:: Echinops – Native to southern Europe and central Asia and parts of Africa, this tall, erect perennial is perfect for the rear of a border. The grey-green foliage is prickle-free and will provide initial interest but the real appeal lies in the uprightness of the meter-plus stalks and the golfball-sized, metallic-blue, globular flowers that sit on top. Good for attracting the aforementioned insects, the globe thistle is also favoured by finches and other seed-eating birds. The most reliable and widely available variety is echinops ritro ‘Veitch’s Blue’, which carries the RHS’s Award of Garden Merit (AGM) for plants of outstanding excellence. Similarly robust is echinops bannatica ‘Taplow Blue’.
Read more: Mind the gap – how to fill your garden borders when spaces appear in summer
Casual Gardener - Your own little prairie
:: Persicaria amplexicaulis ‘Firetail’ – This is a plant that lives up to its dramatic billing. 'Firetail' is a blaze of crimson flower spikes that shoot up from robust - to the point of thuggish - ribbed green foliage. Persicarias are great ground cover plants but unlike many of its namesakes 'Firetail' has height too, reaching more than 60cm skywards.
This firework display begins in July and lasts through much of the autumn. Persicaria amplexicaulis ‘Firetail’ isn't fussy soil-wise and excels when planted alongside any of those plants listed above or below. It's especially effective in wilder, prairie-style planting schemes.
:: Geranium ‘Rozanne’ – If there's one plant I'd recommend to people for giving most bang for your buck it's ‘Rozanne’. A ‘hardy geranium’ of the sort closely related to the native cranesbill, Rozanne is the relative newcomer. It gets its name from Rozanne Waterer, who in the late 1980s along with husband and fellow geranium enthusiast Donald, inadvertently created a plant whose flowering period lasts considerably longer than any of its counterparts. As well as its profusion of long-lasting intense violet-blue flowers, the other main advantage of ‘Rozanne’ is that it’s not particularly fussy about soil types or location, as long as it is neither too dry or waterlogged.
:: Aster – The aster’s name derives from the Greek for star, in reference to its flower shape, which is best described as daisy-like. The plant’s common name is Michaelmas daisy, because its prime flowering period is around the feast of St Michael the Archangel on September 29. The later flowering so-called New York varieties are shorter, and range in colour from white through pink to deep purple. Best varieties include the violet ‘Veilchenkönigin’ (‘Violet Queen’), Aster ericoides 'Golden Spray' and 'Little Carlow’.
