It’s an expression that I bandy around all too easily ‘… the beauty of our line of work is that you never stop learning’, but both Abi and I have had a profound learning experience in the last 12 months that has turned on its head the advice and thoughts we have been giving over the last 15 years when it comes to autumn planting.
Until recently, our mantra for contemplating any October planting with perennials was always that it wasn’t something we’d necessarily recommend based on how our winters are typically long, wet and dank and, by default, have a profoundly detrimental effect on a ‘new’ plant.
But from necessity more than choice, we had a window of opportunity to replant an entirely new area of the nursery garden last October and, to our collective amazement, the results have been tremendous.
The area we planted is in good light and that extends to the winter months as well as through the spring and summer. The ground, whilst dreadfully poor and lacking in nutrients, is well drained and that makes an enormous difference.
We planted over 60 different species and cultivars and, for the first time, we’ve had Echinacea that look healthy and fulsome, a large planting of gold-leaved Agastache (‘Golden Jubilee’) that has stolen the show for much of the summer and early autumn.
I have always dreamed of being able to grow Dierama or ‘Angels Fishing Rod’ (as they are more widely known) in the ground but every attempt has been met with failure until this year when, in the same area on the far side of one of the main planted beds, a small grouping of these most divine flowering perennials did their thing sending out long, graceful, arching stems with their distinctive paper-like pendulous flowers effortlessly floating down at the tip of each stem.
Taking this all into account, I’ve revised my thoughts on the concept of planting late. There is also a benefit to capitalising on planting when water levels are good and whatever you choose to plant now will be raring to go come the spring as soon as conditions are favourable, as opposed to waiting until April when in a few weeks’ time, there is a potential repeat of the intense periods of dry that have been so acute this and previous years.
Thankfully, we made the decision to mulch the newly planted areas generously in early April this year, and I’m so glad that we did, as it helped to conserve the moisture in the ground as well as improve the long term fertility of the soil.
If you’re reading this and you have wet, heavy clay soils in the winter, then it’s worth sticking to a spring planting to avoid the inevitable rotting off of young unestablished plants going in the soil now.
You must be pragmatic in any garden and recognise the limitations of the site (and yourself), but also be prepared to challenge your thoughts and ideas as we did and capitalise on how some scenarios can in fact work out infinitely better than you could have hoped.
The test will be to repeat the exercise in a less favourable area of the garden and see how the plants fare. It just so happens that we’re going to embark on a major overhaul this month of the borders we put in at the very beginning of our time here in 2010 and some of them are a more challenging proposition with regard to winter sun, so watch this space and I’ll report back in due course.
PLANT PROFILES
Botanical name: Geranium ‘Bill Wallis’
Common name: Hedgerow Cranesbill
Size: Height 30cm, spread 40cm
Site: Sun or light shade
Hardiness: Fully Hardy
Description: I adore the liberal seeding nature of this Geranium and its ability to populate a wide variety of sites and locations. It also has an extremely long flowering window extending on and off from late spring through to late Autumn. The intense purple-blue colouring to the petals on ‘Bill Wallis’ stands out beautifully, especially in low light when it practically glows. Easily propagated by sowing seed in early spring or autumn.
Botanical name: Acer capillipes
Common name: Red snake-bark maple
Size: Height 6-8m, spread 4-6m
Site: Sun or light shade
Hardiness: Fully Hardy
Description: This was one of the first ornamental trees I learned about as a student at RBG Edinburgh and was smitten from the start. The bark on this Acer has beautiful, striated markings that run the entire length of the trunk and branches. The pendulous clusters of ripening seeds are followed in the autumn by a kaleidoscopic range of orange, red and yellow hues that will stop you in your tracks.
Botanical name: Dahlia ‘After Dusk’
Common name: Dahlia
Size: 70cm tall
Site: Sun or light shade
Hardiness: Tender perennial
Description: Dahlia ‘After Dusk’ is a gorgeous, deeply
coloured flower head and one that pairs beautifully with light coloured flowers and silver foliage. The Dahlias (with the exception of one or two) need to be lifted now, shake off as much soil/compost as possible, cut back all stems, their tubers should be dried out and planted into fresh, dry compost and placed somewhere frost free and dry for the winter. Pot up and water in late April.
Botanical name: Ginkgo biloba
Common name: Fossil Tree
Size: Up to 25m tall
Site: Sun
Hardiness: Hardy
Description: This is one of the most resilient trees available to us gardeners to grow. I have a Ginkgo growing permanently in a large terracotta pot and it would appear to be perfectly happy. Always one of the last trees to come into leaf, the fresh, strikingly shaped light green leaves are beautiful when grown against bold, bright background colours. The colour in the autumn is the most intense buttery yellow that lasts well into early November.
Tom and his wife Abi run their plant and nursery garden business, Abi and Tom’s Garden Plants, at Halecat in Witherslack, and Grange Plant Centre at Grange-over-Sands. Tom trained at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh and Kew abiandtom.co.uk
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