Tag Archives: Great Dixter

Finally the Dahlia Papers on dahlias

The perfect crimson dahlia ‘Doris Day’, 2017 dahlia trials, Parham, West Sussex

I track down Parham Head Gardener, Tom Brown, in his office where he is carefully stowing away a fat pile of seed packets into a battle-worn filing cabinet. ‘Melon seeds’ he grins. The seeds have been brought back from Italy by the Barnard family, who live in this beautiful Elizabethan house in West Sussex, and one of the many challenges Tom will be cheerily taking on in the coming months will be to see how successfully he can get these new varieties of melon to grow.

Tom has invited me to Parham to see his 2017 Dahlia Trials. I am delighted to be returning to this atmospheric and constantly inventive garden (see my July 2016 post) and I am thrilled to have the chance at last, after four years of writing a blog called The Dahlia Papers, to consider this most uplifting plant.

I love pretty much everything about the dahlia. I love the sheer ballroom-dance-competition glee of each fluffier, more neatly sequinned variety:

Gorgeous salmon pink and cream dahlia above and Dahlia ‘Karma Yin Yang’ below spotted at the Chelsea Flower Show

And I love the neat pompom and ball dahlias for the impossible regularity of of their daintily sculpted, rounded heads – here in polka dot form at the Great Dixter Autumn Plant Fair (7th and 8th October – go if you can!).

There are single dahlias too, of subtle or dazzling shades, that can lift or add depth to a border over a long period in late summer. Dahlia ‘Poppy Scotland’ is a particularly clear bright red cultivar available as a rooted cutting from the National Dahlia Collection .

Dahlia ‘Poppy Scotland’

Dahlias have, of course, become fashionable again in recent times. As has my part of London, Peckham, where exquisitely wrapped English dahlias are available alongside equally exquisite flat breads, pears and cheeses at the lovely General Store in Bellenden Road.

Exquisitely wrapped English dahlias, General Store, Peckham

Naturally, for the 21st birthday party of our twin sons at the beginning of this month, dahlias were the obvious cheerful choice:

Party preparation – rainbow candles, bunting and dahlias

21st birthday party – with dahlias – photo by Freddie Reed

But back to Parham where fifty glorious dahlias have been trialled this summer alongside swathes of gladiolus and a huge patchwork square of zinnias.

The 2017 dahlia trials at Parham, West Sussex

This is the third year of plant trials in the garden. They began as an ingenious solution to the question: how do you get rid of an infestation of bind weed in a tired border and simultaneously offer something for the visitor to look at? As an experiment, Tom Brown asked his team to see if they could come up with 100 varieties of sunflower. The team cleared the bed and covered the ground with plastic membrane to smother the regrowth, but at the same time planted the sunflower seeds through small holes in the plastic. The result was a fantastic display and of course the chance to really get to know and compare the sunflowers so that future selections could be based on their own close observation and not just the persuasive description in a seed catalogue. This is gold dust research – for the record, favourites include ‘Alchemy’ , the creamy white ‘Vanilla Ice’ and ‘Munchkin’.

The ‘Munchkin’ sunflower has been a particular favourite of the Parham ‘flower ladies’ who use cut flowers from the garden throughout the spring and summer to create displays for the house. They like the smaller scale of the flower heads and its branching habit is helpful when creating relaxed arrangements. As we pass a particularly exuberant ‘Munchkin’ plant, Tom admits that he is unable to explain what happened to the supposedly ‘dwarf’ characteristic on this one:

An inexplicably tall ‘Munchkin’ sunflower

In 2016 there was an equally seductive allium trial and for 2017 Tom enlisted the help of dahlia expert Richard Ramsey (of nearby specialist dahlia nursery Withypitts ) to come up with a list of fifty favourite dahlias for the Parham gardeners and visitors alike to get to know better. The dahlias are arranged in long rows, supported with a grid of string, and have been picked continuously so that their vase performance can be tested too.

The sumptuous pink Dahlia ‘Prefet Demange’, Parham dahlia trials

Each of the six Parham gardeners has had their say in the ultimate list of top ten favourites and some tubers will be immediately reordered for use around the garden next year.

The perky orange and yellow ‘Charlie Dimmock’ has made the top ten and will be used in the about-to-be-revamped Gold Border. Again the flower ladies liked its lightly spreading, smaller flowered form when left to its own devices. To get a larger flower on a long straight stem, the trick with a dahlia is to remove the two side buds and leave the terminal bud to develop into a champion flower.

Dahlia ‘Charlie Dimmock’ – a long stemmed champion flower

Dahlia Charlie Dimmock – left to grow as more relaxed sprays

The substantial semi-cactus Dahlia ‘Black Jack’ has also confirmed its place as an absolute favourite (I particularly love the energy of ‘Black Jack’ as a just opening bud).

Dahlia ‘Black Jack’ – open and in bud

And Dahlia ‘Small World’ – a free flowering crisp white pompom dahlia did not in fact get to the Top Ten (it was pipped tot the post by ‘Snowflake’ but has been selected by one of the gardeners, Reese, to be used next year as a sort of small mounding shrub at the front of the White Border.

Dahlia ‘Small World’

There is a gorgeous, waxy salmon pink dahlia ‘Aljo’ which also made the top ten.

Dahlia ‘Aljo’

And two of my favourites which are looking particularly good on the day I visit (not such a reliable approach, clearly) are featured below: The cheerful, ‘Dutch Carnival with its super neat circles of red and yellow petals and the delicate, almost transparent ‘Brother Josh’.

Dahlia ‘Dutch Carnival’ (above) and ‘Brother Josh’ (below)

The trial bed is buzzing midweek in September with visitors examining and selecting their own preferred blooms. The next stage, of course – if you are not growing dahlias on their own as cut flowers – is to work out how to combine them in the border.

Dahlias are always used with exhilarating panache at Great Dixter . Visitors to the Autumn Plant Fair will be able to catch the late autumn garden there in full swing.

I love the sugar pink Dahlia ‘Hillcrest Candy’ here soaring to the sky with a backdrop of arching miscanthus.

Dahlia ‘Hillcrest Candy’, Great Dixter

In the Barn Garden, the fiery red Dahlia ‘Wittermans superba’ is used with brilliant simplicity against a plain green foil of a fan trained fig.

Dahlia ‘Witterman’s Superba’ against the magnificent fan trained fig, Barn Garden, Great Dixter

And here a deep pink dahlia – possibly ‘Hillcrest Royal’ – is a rich accent in a celebratory dance of a border with spiky cardoons, the burnt orange Helenium ‘Sahin’s Early Flowerer’ and the crazily tall Persicaria orientalist – kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate.

Dahlia ‘Hillcrest Royal’ adds a deep accent to a border, Great Dixter

One of my favourite Great Dixter combinations is Dahlia ‘Mexican Black’ – a single flowered dahlia which is actually a cross with the chocolate scented Cosmos atrosanguineus – used as a covetable bobbing partner for the rhythmic, deep purple Salvia ‘Amistad’.

Dahlia ‘Mexican Black’ with Salvia ‘Amistad’

I cannot leave Parham, of course, without endless other aspects of the garden catching my eye.

The Entrance Border is looking spectacularly bruised and moody.

Entrance Border, Parham

I am smitten by Dicentra scandens – a pale yellow, climbing bleeding heart I have not met before that lightly clambers over and through the bed which Tom assures me can be grown as an annual if planted in June.

Dicentra scandens clambering over sedum in the Entrance Border, Parham

I like the subtle combination of both pale pink and coral pink persicaria with feathery calamagrostis:

Persicaria amplixicaulis ‘Rosea’ and ‘Firetail’ with feathery calamagrostis, Entrance Border, Parham

There is a slightly more silvery version of this palette in the Prairie Border. I love the use of pale yellow Bidens heterophylla to lighten the mood and the way the silky tassels of miscanthus and the dull pink of Eupatoreum work so well with the mottled brick of the wall behind them.

The Prairie Border, Parham with pale yellow widens lighting up the border

There are simple, strong effects such as this stand of white Japanese anemone against an open garden gate

Japanese anemone against garden gate, Parham

And the zinnia trials introduce me to the delicious antique looking ‘Queen Red Lime’ (which did indeed make the Parham 2017 top ten):

Zinnia elegans ‘Queen Red Lime’

Of the many exciting projects at Parham, I am particularly intrigued by a new planting of lilac and Iris sibirica .

New planting of Syringa vulgaris ‘Katherine Havemeyer’ and Iris sibirica

Landscape designer, Todd Longstaffe-Gowan comes to Parham a couple of times a year to act as an advisor and sounding board. A plan was developed to do away with a tired looking lavender cross and fill the space with romantic and traditional lilac shrubs emerging from pools of slender Iris sibirica. The gorgeous ‘Katherine Havemeyer’ was selected for the lilac: Ashridge Trees describes it as is a scented, double flowered lilac with ‘an elusive colour that ranges from lavender pink to mauvey blue depending on the time of day and the intensity of the light’.

Syringa vulgaris ‘Katherine Havemeyer’

100 each of 12 different cultivars of Iris sibirica were planted, as a sort of fast track on-the-job trial. ln fact Iris sibirica ‘Silver edge’ is already outstripping its neighbours as ‘by far the best blue’. This part of the garden is looking young and quiet at the moment and Tom and his team are making sure that the iris are given a couple of years of pampering, removing any competing grass and mulching generously to get them established. I can imagine a visit in late May in a year or two’s time when the groups of iris with their fine mauve-blue flowers and slim sword shaped leaves form a wonderful graceful understory to the clouds of lilac in full flower.

Iris sibirica ‘Katherine Havemeyer’

A quick peak into one of the new glasshouses reveals that Tom has, despite his initial modesty, already succeeded in growing some perfect specimens of melon. The glass house is heady with their scent and I feel very stupid not to have known before that melons are supported in string bags.

Melons in the glass house at Parham

My contribution is to recommend the passionate Amy Goldman’s book on melons (I have written about Amy Goldman in my post A Gardener’s Letter to Paris ).

As I am leaving Parham a magnificent stone trough catches my eye. Airy rich yellow bidens, scarlet salvia and gorgeous trails of the purple bell vine, Rhodochiton atrosanguineus. The planting is one hundred percent Parham: exuberant, delicate and slightly unexpected. Thank you Tom for another inspiring visit.

Stone trough with widens, salvia and purple bell vine, Parham, West Sussex

ANTIQUE CAMELLIAS AT CHISWICK HOUSE AND WOODLAND CAMELLIAS AT GREAT DIXTER

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CONSIDERING THE CAMELLIA IN A SPRING GARDEN

It is a teasing time of year – gorgeous one minute and miserable the next. If the skies are glowering and the temperature still demands a bobble hat, a clever move is to head off to one of the RHS shows in Vincent Square for a fix of Spring. This photograph of a camellia judging table from an Early Spring Show is permanently pinned to my notice board and has sustained me with its intense rainbow of pinks since 2004…

Camellia judging table, RHS VIncent Square 2004

And this image of the elegant, dancing Narcissus ‘Snipe’ on the delightful Broadleigh Bulbs stand was taken on a gloomy Sunday afternoon this February. Now firmly on my bulb order list for next September, the photograph will cheer me until early 2016 when I hope to find it flowering in my own garden.

Narcissus ‘Snipe’, Broadleigh Bulbs, The London Plant and Potato Fair 2015

We have had some staggeringly beautiful early Spring days and the whole season seems to be moving rather fast, although farmers tell me that we are two weeks behind last year. As I set out a few days ago to visit the camellia collection at Chiswick House in West London, the view from my kitchen is hazy with promise:

Brilliant March sunshine, Camberwell

I have been planning a trip to New York and feel slightly guilty as New York friends continue to endure deep winter…

Scenes from New York, March 2015

… whilst I’m padding about the newly restored glasshouse at Chiswick House, my jacket under my arm, admiring the ranked antiquity of its camellias, some of which have been grown here for 160 years:

View of the Chiswick House Camellia Collection

The sunlight casts exhilaratingly crisp shadows on the walls and floor:

Camellia japonica ‘Betty Fox Saunders’ and Coade stone vase laced with shadows in the conservatory at Chiswick House

And it is easy to delight in the voluptuous flamenco frills of Camellia japonica ‘Rubra Plena’

Camellia japonica ‘Rubra Plena’

the intense red and white marbling of ‘Coralina’:

Camellia japonica ‘Coralina’

and the cool, palest pink of Camellia ‘Gray’s Invincible’ – my favourite of this important collection, a camellia that was bred by a London head gardener in 1824:

Camellia japonica ‘Gray’s Invincible’

The collection at Chiswick has had an extraordinary history. Some of the twelve foot high specimens survived bomb damage to the glasshouse during the Second World War and despite periods of considerable neglect they have managed to keep going – whereas a once similar collection at Chatsworth no longer exists.

But as a gardener, I find myself wondering how I apply the immaculate sight of an entire neatly clipped tree in perfect candy-pink bloom to a real garden situation :

Camellia japonica ‘Incarnata’

I am distracted for a moment by the handsome pots of young Camellia Japonica ‘Lily Pons’ planted with the fern, Dryopteris affinis:

Camellia japonica ‘Lily Pons’

I have always liked this elegant, white-flowered camellia which has glossy dark green leaves, translucent white petals and a relaxed, upright habit. It is known as an excellent camellia for training along a shady fence. I would love to try it, but can’t quite imagine how effective it would be in the flesh – perhaps this image of an immaculately trained red camellia, found on the seductive website Gardenista, will tempt someone to give it a go?

An immaculate wall trained camellia

It is a relief to step outside the conservatory and find a further enormous tree of a camellia planted jauntily in the open air, taking charge of the glass house. This is no longer a beauty parade – it is just a wonderful specimen tree, with good space around it, welcoming you into the handsome white painted glass house.

Red camellia at the Conservatory Entrance, Chiswick House

The key with camellias in a garden situation is to think hard about how they will work in context before being seduced by the enticing brilliance of a particular flower. There are too many camellias out there, chosen for the perkiness of their flower, but looking brash and lonely in the middle of a front garden or wintery border.

One of the cleverest ways to grow camellias is to celebrate their well-groomed neatness and plant them as a formal hedge. A neighbour’s extremely pretty front garden in Camberwell has a hedge of Camellia japonica ‘Forest Green’ which forms a year-round glossy screen of emerald green against the shiny black Victorian railings:

Camellia japonica ‘Forest Green’ against black railings, Camberwell

‘Forest Green’ is late to flower but when it does the hedge is lit up by dashes of brilliant carmine, and for the rest of the year it is a handsome foil to an immaculate knot garden.

Knot garden – Camberwell

Another way to go to with camellias is to find a gentler form which will work with, and not against, a planting scheme. My absolute favourite camellia is Camellia ‘Cornish show’. This is a compact camellia with a relaxed, slightly arching habit and very pretty single white, fragrant flowers, tinged pink on the reverse of the petals. There is a wonderful specimen of this in a woodland edge planting at the Chelsea Physic Garden.

Camellia ‘Cornish Snow’ just coming into flower at the Chelsea Physic Garden, March 2015

As with all camellias, ‘Cornish Snow’ prefers acidic conditions, but I plan to follow Monty Don’s example – he planted a Camellia ‘Cornish Snow’ a few years ago in neutral soil in the Gardener’s World garden and has been successfully using composted bracken around the plant to reduce the pH of the soil.

It is worth visiting the Chelsea Physic Garden just to see this very lovely camellia covered in white flowers – it is planted next to the fantastic Rosa x odorata ‘Bengal Crimson’, famous for being in flower every day of the year, and it was indeed blooming gently all over earlier this month.

Rosa x odorata ‘Bengal Crimson’, Chelsea Physic Garden

Elsewhere in the garden was a perfect, rounded specimen of the lemony-scented Daphne odora and wonderful shoots of Iris orientalis catching the cool spring sunshine.

Daphne odora, Chelsea Physic Garden

Iris orientalis, Chelsea Physic Garden

Where there is space of course, and the right soil, camellias provide a vital early radiance to the spring woodland garden. Here at RHS Wisley camellias have the chance to become substantial plants and look great because they are nestled amongst shrubs and trees of similar scale.

Camellias amongst woodland, Battleston Hill, RHS Wisley

At Great DIxter camellias are used predictably well too. When I visited this month, a lovely pale pink camellia provided a shot of soft colour in this beautifully balanced garden, poised for another electric spring:

Palest pink camellia, Great Dixter, March 2015

Pink Azalea and clipped topiary, Great Dixter, March 2015

The Peacock Garden with canes marking ‘stockbed’ planting areas, Great Dixter, March 2015Lush Aucuba japonica f. longifolia and hellebores, Great Dixter, March 2015

By April a deep crimson camellia will be flowering amongst pale and richer pinks of magnolia – a perfect example of the kind of heady delight that the garden provides so much of:

Camellia and magnolias, Great Dixter, April 2013

New York yesterday was back to this:

But in London the sun is – amazingly – still shining. There remains another week to wander up and down the aisle of brilliant champion camellias at Chiswick House (the Camellia Show runs until March 29th) or you could slip into the Chelsea Physic Garden any week day to admire Camellia ‘Cornish Show’. If you want a wonderful fix of spring garden plus the chance to buy rare and gorgeous plants of every kind, head to the unusual and generous Great Dixter Spring Plant Fair next weekend.

SECRET LONDON BENCHES

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INTIMATE PLACES TO SIT – AND MAYBE EAT YOUR LUNCH – SURROUNDED BY PLANTS IN THE CITY

Vibrantly planted urn at the centre of the Garden of St John’s Lodge

You are walking through the imposing Avenue Gardens in Regent’s Park. Maybe you are on your way to the Frieze Art Fair, or to the zoo or returning from a doctor’s appointment or a shopping trip. There is something gracious and international – Parisian almost – about the perfect symmetry and the monumental scale of the avenues and the formal gardens which flank them but you might feel a little lonely here amongst the glowering, repeated foliage and inky topiary sitting on a bench unwrapping your lunchtime sandwich:

Regent’s Park, London
Regent’s Park, London

Avenue Garden, Regent’s Park London

If you move away from the immaculate paths you will of course come across some gorgeous surprises – when I visit a few days ago, the ripening fruits of this strawberry tree, Arbutus unedo, has the brilliant primitive energy of a Henri Rousseau painting:

fruits of Arbutus unedo – the Strawberry Tree

And it is exciting to venture further off the main drag (just off the Inner Circle near to the junction with Chester Road) and discover the peaceful, intimate Garden of St John’s Lodge.

St John’s Lodge was the first elegant white stucco villa built in John Nash’s Regent’s Park. The house, finished in 1819, was originally (and is now again) a private residence, but it has had various other lives as headquarters of the RNIB and as Bedford College, London University. In 1888 the then owner, the 3rd Marquess of Bute, commissioned Robert Weir Schultz to create a garden ‘fit for meditation’. The garden – with its feeling of enclosure, a series of comfortable garden rooms around a circular central space – has been open to the public since 1928 when the Cabinet decreed that more of Regent’s Park should be accessible to Londoners.

The garden was renovated by Colvin and Moggridge in 1994 and the style of planting is as soft and natural as the outer world of the Park is restrained and formal. Even at the end of October vibrant mounds of Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’ spill over onto the sunken lawns.

Erysimum ‘Bowles’s Mauve’

A high backed wooden bench surrounded by geraniums, Viburnum davidii, and ferns

There are handsome high backed wooden benches, sensitively set apart from each other and enclosed in wonderful arbours of green. In summer the generous benches are framed with trailing clematis and wisteria. In autumn they are still encased in a booth of green: a classic but enduringly effective combination of geraniums, glossy Viburnum davidii and ferns. Here the bench itself is rather brilliantly underplanted with Sarcococca confusa – Christmas Box – which will provide a delicious, secret supply of heady scent in late winter.

I am running late and trying to leave the garden with a view to returning as soon as I can, when my eye is drawn to the brilliant coral planting of a huge urn, glimpsed through an arch formed in a hedge of lime trees, with white Japanese anemones lining a tunnel-like path and luring me to come closer.

Giant urn enclosed by a circle of Limes, Garden of St John’s Lodge

I cannot resist and move forward to take a look. As I approach the fringe of back-lit, lime leaves glows a brilliant green:

The urn seen through a fringe of brilliant green lime leaves

The winter planting of the urn is not quite finished but it is rather sensational: young plants of Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’ amongst salmon, plum and toffee-coloured winter pansies against a densely scalloped backdrop of dark green:

Close up of the urn with Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’, winter pansies and trailing ivy

Clutching my new London secret garden to me, I walk down the hill that evening with my family to our brilliant local cinema, Peckham Plex. I am thrilled to see that my evening of enjoyable but ridiculous adventure (Gone Girl) is made sweeter by the sudden arrival of ‘Rye Lane Orchard’ – a series of fruiting trees in galvanised metal containers that now line the unglamorous path between McDonald’s and the cinema:

Rye Lane Orchard, Peckham

rye lane establish 2

Rye Lane Orchard, Peckham

There are red and white stripey benches to perch on while waiting for a friend:

Perching Bench, Rye Lane Orchard

Or two of you could arrange to meet up and have a drink or a chat:

Bench for two in Rye Lane Orchard

I love the gentle orange red of the crab apples against the harsher 1970’s brick buildings:

Close up of Crab Apples, Rye Lane Orchard

I like the simple, thorough, industrial style of the labelling:

And I like the way that you can quietly find out more about how the trees got here if you want to:

And the slightly out of place – but hats-off-for-trying – addition of recipes and information about the trees :

When I get home I do want to know more. I find out that the ‘Orchard’ arrived in fact in April 2014 and will remain as part of an experiment in enriching this urban, bustling part of South London with plants for a couple of years. It was originally part of ‘Octavia’s Orchard’, an innovative 2013 collaboration between The South Bank, The National Trust and architects, ‘What if: project’ – for which a greater collection of trees and benches spent the summer on the South Bank. I am intrigued to learn that the original project was named for Octavia Hill who not only founded the National Trust but also campaigned powerfully for everyone to have access to green spaces “the sight of sky and of things growing” – I had not known that securing public access to Parliament Hill FIelds, Vauxhall Park and Brockwell Park were just some of her triumphs. If you think the National Trust is too cosy, even slightly old fashioned it is worth remembering Ms Hill’s founding fire nearly 120 years ago: “Destruction of open spaces is imminent because we are all so accustomed to treat money value as if it were the only real value”.

The Fox Garden, South London Gallery, in May – the path lit up with Libertia grandiflora

Elsewhere in Peckham there is another secret garden you should know about – The Fox Garden at the leading contemporary art gallery, The South London Gallery. I have to come clean that this is a garden I am closely involved with (I designed the planting for the garden with my partner, Helen Fraser) and it is one of our favourite projects. It is such a beautiful space – flanked on one side by the towering wall of the original Gallery, (opened in 1891 – around the same time that Octavia Hill was gearing up to co-create the National Trust), and framed at each end by the elegant Clore Studio and No. 67 Cafe, designed by 6a architects. Also, and perhaps most importantly, the garden is open to everyone, every day except Monday, and like the Gallery itself, free to visit. It was the vision of gallery director, Margot Heller, that led to us becoming involved: she was adamant that this was an opportunity to provide a surprising seasonally rich garden within the gallery walls, only steps away from the gritty reality of Peckham Road.

Here, on simple oak benches , you can eat your lunch surrounded by a palette of plants which changes significantly as the year progresses:

The rich palette of The Fox Garden in January – Libertia grandiflora foliage and the red berries of Nandina domestica

The same Nandina in spring, this time illuminated by the pale spires of Tellima grandiflora

Pale claret flowers of Geranium phaeum with skinny green spires of Heuchera cylindrica in May

June: the beautiful milky bracts of the enormous Cornus Kousa var. chinensis that fill the glass windows of the cafe.

The garden surprises with scent too at different times of year – mounds of Sarcococca confusa flank the path at each end of the garden and the scent of Philadelphus fills the space in June. And of course sometimes an artist will want to use the garden as part of the Gallery space itself. Until 23 November 2014 you can eat your lunch contemplating the elegant, swooping ‘wall sculpture’ by Lawrence Weiner – part of his ALL IN DUE COURSE exhibition in the main gallery:

Lawrence Weiner wall sculpture on expansive Victorian Gallery/Fox Garden wall

Close up Lawrence Weiner wall sculpture on SLG Gallery/Fox Garden wall

A short journey away by train and tube is the place to find London’s most brilliantly colourful benches to sit and eat on:

Bench surrounded by `Salvia uliginosa, Salvia involucrata ‘Bethellii’ and Rudbeckia

Bench with Miscanthus sinesnsis, Salvia leucantha and Salvia involucrata ‘Bethellii’ spilling over

This is the garden of the Inner Temple which is gardened with wonderful energy and originality by Head Gardener, Andrea Brunsendorf – and is a place not only for learned, dark-suited lawyers to come into the sun for a few moments but is again open to everyone from 12.30 to 3.00 each weekday:

Andrea is well known for her exuberant late summer borders (but please check out the garden at tulip time and come again to see the Peony Garden in full bloom). Here in late October, the borders make you smile with their exuberance:

You can tell the way it is gardened by the relaxed bearing of the self seeded verbascum on the garden steps:

Self seeded Verbascum on Inner Temple Garden Steps

And by the celebratory way the Verbascum petals are allowed to linger like stars on the stone steps:

Individual Verbascum flowers against stone

Peak through the railings on your way to court and you will catch the orange flash of tangled mexican sunflowers – Tithonia rotundifolia :

Or you might stop to admire silky clematis seed heads spilling out onto the pavement:
Clematis seedhead

Or maybe you will wonder – as I did – about the amazing shrubby plant flanking the entrance with tulip shaped leaves and yellow pea like flowers?

Amicia zygomeris flanking the steps

Close up of Amicia zygomeris

Andrea kindly put me out of my misery and revealed this plant to be a fantastic woody-based perennial which can survive a temperature of -14 degrees celsius (it will regenerate if cut down by frost) – a brilliant, or as Christopher Lloyd puts it ‘unexpectedly stylish’ foliage plant for a courtyard garden. I remembered in fact that there is the most beautiful stand of this Amicia in the Exotic Garden at Great Dixter – I had been drawn to the purple veining of its leaves and stipules but had never seen it flower …
Amicia zygomeris at Great Dixter

Walking down the steps to the main body of the garden the autumn sunshine has a magical dancing effect on the surprisingly relaxed planting on either side:

Miscanthus sinensis ‘Unidine’ with Verbena hastata ‘Rosea’

Teasels back lit by the autumn sunshine

Here you will find quieter, shadier places to sit: I loved this benches’ backdrop of Begonia grandis subsp. Evansiana

Begonia is not used often enough as a late flowering plant for shade: in the Inner Temple Garden it is brilliantly and simply combined with Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’:

Begonia grandis subsp. evansiana with Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’

Close up elegant flowers of Begonia grandis subsp. Evansiana

There is one further, perfectly positioned bench, a quiet bench in an arking canopy of just turning greens and yellows:

This bench reminds me suddenly of my fig tree at home – that fantastic moment between green and yellow:

I realise I will be back here again tomorrow. Just round the corner is the Temple Church where one of my sons is singing. I love these connections between art and gardens and film and trees and gardens and music. Come to the concert tomorrow and try to visit the Inner Temple Garden whenever you can.

WHAT TO EAT UNDER A MOUNT ETNA BROOM?

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TOM STUART-SMITH’S VIBRANT, SCENTED JULY GARDEN (AND THE CAKE TO MATCH IT) The Sunken courtyard garden, Serge Hill with brilliant yellow Mount Etna Broom billowing overhead and a soft tapestry of grasses, salvia, astrantia and Euphorbia at ground level

The problem Tom Stuart-Smith must face when he occasionally opens his Hertfordshire garden is that none of the visitors are inclined to leave. It is a glorious Monday in July and only a few miles north of the clutter and bustle of the Edgware Road. I step out of my car and am immediately met with this: idyllic, gently rolling parkland – blond grass and spreading oaks, the view softened by perfectly judged swathes of uncut meadow that divide the house from the countryside beyond:

The view from Serge Hill

Sweetly clad outbuildings begin the sense of welcome and tip you, deliciously unsuspecting, into the different garden spaces beyond.

Outbuildings festooned with clematis and roses

Turning right, my breath is taken away by stretches of pale, delicate Echinacea pallida which float freely like exquisite jelly fish in the Prairie.

Echinacea Pallida

In this gorgeous area of of prairie planting Tom has created a dreamy place to experiment with broad sweeps of colour and form: as each plant comes into its own it casts a certain new intensity or contrast of texture on the scene. Here, fantastically generous quantities of Dianthus carthusianorum add both an earthy density and an almost luminous glow to the softly pastel, slightly shredded quality of the Echinacea.

Dianthus carthusianorum and Echinacea pallida

The wonderful coral red Penstemmon barbatus coccineus is scattered gently through the planting to lift it away from the coolness of the pinks:

Coral red Penstemmon barbatus coccineus amongst Echinacea and Dianthus carthusianorum

And there are – almost hidden – dashes of a really wild orange from the native American milkweed, Asclepias tuberose

Asclepias tuberose with Dianthus carthusianorum

The whole scene is naturally masterfully framed – here by handsome hedges and rusty roof tiles:

Here by the simple pale blue-grey of the corrugated iron building designed by Ptolemy Dean:The towering forms of Silphium laciniatum – another native American prairie plant, the Compass plant – seem to herald a leitmotive throughout the garden, as if Tom Stuart-Smith is keen to ensure that there are tall elegant shadows of his tall elegant self just in case he is not personally there to greet you.

Silphium laciniatum against the sky

Through a simple oak gate into a classic, scented kitchen garden:

It is at this point that the visitors – who are here to support the NGS and The Garden Museum – begin to find the whole thing highly covetable and start to put down their own roots. The Prairie has been a surprising and ethereal adventure but here, there is a manageable, settled feel with that brilliant combination of productive order and sense of overspilling colour that you get from the happiest kitchen gardens:

Verbena bonariensis and Allium sphaerocephalon amongst beans in the kitchen gardenView through to the Pelargonium and tomato-filled greenhouse

The blue-grey corrugated iron and bleached wooden door of the kitchen garden ‘shed’ a subtle backdrop to pots of scented sweet peas, white agapanthus, espaliered fruit trees and lavender.

Tulbaghia violacea a brilliantly perky edging to a bed of moody blue-green cabbage

Back out of the kitchen garden and into the calm of meadow and hedge:

A further rounded, shaggy yew hedge forms a protective embrace around the main family garden:

Beyond the hedge I find myself in a rich terracotta, green and fading mauve haven of comfort and softness. This a National Garden Scheme version of the Marie Celeste – the table and chairs are set out and ready to go, an embroidered cinnamon coloured shawl is draped casually over a bench the doors to the house are breezily ajar. But there are no Stuart-Smiths about and again the visitors find themselves settling down at the table, moving on only with difficulty:Through the barn windows framed by a voluptuous draped vine, there is an intoxicating glimpse of rich yellow from the Mount Etna Broom beyond:Palest yellow hollyhocks provide a serene offbeat echo to the riot of yellow through the archway:

As you pull away from the house you reach a potentially formal area of clipped box hedges and sky-scratching yew columns (that Tom Stuart-Smith leitmotiv again) but in fact the topiary shapes serve more as a happy, forgiving foil to overspilling herbaceous planting.

The topiary shapes are used as a happy, forgiving foil to overspilling herbacious planting:Stately white Epilobium dances in the space between the yew columns

Stipa gigantea and Phlomis russeliana catch the light

There is a moment of elegant calm with neatly clipped hedges and a troupe of slender, lacy poplars (the need for something tall and slim again):

Poplars and clipped hedges agains the sky

And then the chance to meander along gently shaded wooded areas:

The planting combinations are simple, and always brilliantly thoughtful – here a blue geranium is illuminated by the tiny rice like flowers of the arching grass, Mellica altissima ‘Alba’ :

Melica altissima ‘Alba’ and a blue geranium

Here a rusty coloured Helenium and a dark red Dahlia have the glaucous foliage of Macleaya cordata as a backdrop and the signature brilliant green underplanting of Hakonechloa macra:

A wooden bench is almost hidden by the surrounding planting (again I watch as visitors make their way almost competitively over to this so that for a few precious moments the bench can be their own).

And then I am back to the sweet outbuildings again, almost forgetting that my tour is not yet over:

But beyond a papery constellation of white Romneya coulteri is a compelling sunken garden the star of which on this mid July day is without a doubt three brilliant Genista aetnensis – or Mount Etna Broom, known for the scrubby volcano edge habitat on which it grows wild.

One of my favourite Mount Etna Broom’s stands as sort of celebratory sentry – like an attractive, slightly bonkers festival-going uncle – outside the gates of Great Dixter in East Sussex

Genista aetnensis outside the front gate at Great Dixter

For a few weeks in July the tree tirelessly waves its relaxed limbs of cheery brightness and can be spotted mid-dance over hedge and meadow:

Here at Serge Hill, Tom Stuart-Smith has used its airy extravagance to lighten and brighten a sophisticated courtyard garden with Corten steel pools and panels, flemish brickwork and slender hardwood decking recycled from his RHS Chelsea Flower Show garden of 2006:

Stuart-Smith’s Chelsea 2006 garden

slender hardwood decking from Tom Stuart-Smith’s Chelsea 2006 garden

Square corten steel pools and flemish brick path from Tom Stuart-Smith’s 2006 Chelsea garden

The palette of the courtyard garden in 2014 is subtle and properly lived in. I love the broken streak of steel blue Eryngium amongst the bright greens yellows and mauves:

Steel blue Eryngium amongst the acid yellow of Euphorbia and soft grasses

Purple-black sedum adds depth to the bold architectural foliage and pea-like seedheads of Euphorbia mellifera:

Grasses additonal layers of hazy rhythm:

The richness of the velvety Chelsea Irises has been replaced by much gentler buttons of Astrantia

and the corten steel itself has become softer and satisfyingly dull.

The decking is now silvery and tempting underfoot. The simplicity of this low chair at the base of an outstanding cloud burst of the fragrant Myrtus luma is intensely seductive.So seductive in fact that pairs of women in white linen and couples with plump princely babies hover and perch and try to stay just that bit longer.

I am imagine staying too and my start wondering what would be the perfect thing to eat or drink in this refined, colourful haven. What should one bring to eat in this garden if one were ever invited as a guest?

I have been relishing Frances Bissell’s book, The Scented KitchenI have loved every minute of her learned, uplifting text: I have learnt how ‘In America, day lily buds are deep-fried and served as one would okra’ or, on the subject of flower oils I have been imagining ” a lobster brushed with jasmine oil prior to being roasted, or perhaps rose or carnation oil brushed on scallops before you grill them”. There is an enchanting process called enfleurage which can be used for flower butters “all you do is wrap a piece of fresh unsalted butter in muslin, bury it in a bowl of petals, cover and leave it in a cool place for about 12 hours… this method works well with roses, jasmine, pinks and violets … delicious on toast or teatime scones”…

I am pretty sure that ‘Taffety Tart’ would be surprising, sophisticated and deft enough to do the trick. Frances Bissell describes the tart as ‘an exquisite combination of lemon, rosewater and anis’ which was once a grand success when she cooked at the British Embassy in Cairo. It is a very light open apple tart with a layer of scented Pelargonium ‘Attar of Roses’ leaves between the pastry and the apple and sprinkled with sugar, softened butter, rosewater, lemon zest and anis or fennel seeds.

Option two would be Yotam Ottelenghi’s Apricot, Walnut and Lavender cake I have been wanting to make all year since it was published last summer in the Guardian.

Photograph: Colin Campbell for The Guardian

There is something enduring and seductive about Ottelenghi’s description of the recipe “it’s like Provence in a cake”. The colours, rich orange with soft mauve and the texture dense with ground oily walnuts and lightened by lemon zest could be just the thing to savour as you hang on for a few last minutes in this loveliest of gardens.

Ehttps://nonmorris.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/corten-pools-2006.jpg

LILY OF THE VALLEY ON THE FIRST OF MAY

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GRACE KELLY, PARIS IN THE SPRING TIME AND THE “WORST OF ALL DELICIOUS” WEEDS

Convallaria majalis var. rosea after the rain

On the wooden table outside our kitchen door I have a terracotta pot of the most elegant pink lily of the valley, Convallaria majalis var. rosea. The pot was given to me as a precious container of newly planted bulbs by my friend the painter, Charlotte Verity . The gift was important as it was a memento of an extraordinary year Charlotte spent as Artist in Residence at The Garden Museum in London in 2010. Here in the shadow of the ruddy castellated walls of neighbouring Lambeth Palace, Charlotte spent a year painting in Tradescant’s Garden – the knot garden created in 1981 by the Dowager Marchioness of Salisbury around the important tomb of the Seventeenth Century plant hunters.

Lily of the Valley 2009 – Charlotte Verity

Here amongst the formal framework of box with its spring halo of brilliant green, Charlotte’s observation of the garden’s plants was intimate and exquisite:

‘The medlar tree painting is taking a long time, the paint thickening and in danger of losing light. Trying to get the direction of the branches the way they step back and forth, the silvery bark shining in the light and dark in the shadows” (extract from the wonderful diary she kept through the year and published by the Garden Museum).

I love the love lush fullness of her 2009 painting of white lily of the valley – in which the leaves almost battle for position. Early twentieth Century plant hunter, Reginald Farrer describes lily of the valley as “the worst of all delicious weeds when it thrives” because of its sometimes rampant tendency. But as Beth Chatto writes in her nursery catalogue, conditions are not always easy to achieve and if one has “humus rich soil, among shrubs perhaps, where there is room for the wandering rhizomes … who would not plant lily of the valley for its heady scent in May and June and the chance to pick handfuls for the house”.

One of my favourite examples of the way lily of the valley can be grown to exploit this energetic tendency is the regimented mass of them in the walled kitchen gardens at West Dean College and Gardens in Sussex. Here amidst the covetable order of fruit tunnels, lined out vegetables and the ultimate gothic-gated apple house, lily of the valley grows in impressively deft order at the base of a beautiful flint wall.

The Apple Store in the Walled Kitchen Garden at West Dean

Lily of the Valley at the base of a flint wall at West Dean

Charlotte’s painting of the pink lily of the valley she encountered in the Tradescant Garden at the Garden Museum is one of my favourites. I love the way she has captured the spare, framing curve of the strong leaves which form an arch around the pale, silvery pink of the flowers, and I am moved by the clarity of colour given to the Convallaria against the deep earthiness of the background.

Convallaria Rosea 2010 – Charlotte Verity

If you should have a problem with over zealous species lily of the valley, choosing this less vigourous pink form or one of the Saville-Row-handsome variegated forms would be a rewarding move for a shady spot in your garden:

Convallaria majalis var rosea – a present from Charlotte in September 2013

Convallaria majalis ‘Variagata’

If you opt for the variegated route it is important to source your plants from a really good nursery. Beth Chatto is open about the trouble her nursery has had in the past with the handsome leaves of variegated lilies of the valley often reverting to plain green in a ‘disappointingly short time’. The nursery now offers the seemingly steadfast Convallaria majalis ‘Albostriata’ when it is available.

One of the really helpful characteristics of lily of the valley is that the foliage dies back after blooming which makes it a perfect subject for Great Dixter style intensive successional planting. There is an excellent article by Gareth Richards about lily of the valley in the April 2014 edition of the RHS Garden Magazine. Here, National Plant Collection holder, Brigitte Haugh recommends a rather brilliant sequence of snowdrops, followed by lily of the valley, followed by Turk’s cap lilies. All three thrive in similar conditions and yet only one will be present in the same spot at any one time.

Today, in France it is La Fête de Muguet or Lily of the Valley Day. It is a national holiday (also Labour Day!) with a sweet tradition of giving fragrant bunches of lily of the valley to family and friends. This symbolic gift of flowers is said to date back to 1560 when King Charles IX was given a posy on the first of May as a token of good luck and prosperity for the coming year. It became an annual tradition for the King to give members of his Court lily of the valley on May Day – a tradition revived in around 1900, first as a romantic present and now a ubiquitous part of the holiday.

I remember seeing cellophane wrapped cones of rather giant lily of the valley on sale EVERYWHERE in Paris, (garages, department stores, pavements), when I spent a rather idyllic few months studying History of Art at the Sorbonne in my Gap Year. It turns out rather satisfyingly that there is a particularly favoured chunky variety called ‘Géant de Fortins’. Despite the rather over commercialised reality of today’s version of the tradition there is a lingering fragrant romance to the very idea.

It is tied up with the freshness and the scent and all our romantic notions of Paris in the spring. When the perfect Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier III of Monaco in late April 1956 she carried a demure, bouquet of tiny pearl-like lily of the valley and our hearts have been irrevocably caught ever since:

My own parents got married three years later during a very snowy January in Wales. My mother is famous for worrying most that her cream satin dress would ‘look dirty’ against the white of the snow. But she looked beautiful, of course, and I will always treasure this photograph with her own simple bouquet of lily of the valley nestling near the wedding cake.I am about to plant my delicate pale pink lily of the valley in the ground and hope they will multiply with unseemly vigour. Happy May 1st!

RED GOLD GREEN AND WHITE FOR ADVENT

STARRY AUTUMN DAYS

GREAT DIXTER: LAST DAY OF SEPTEMBER

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A CELEBRATION OF BRILLIANT PLANTING AT THE VERY END OF SUMMER

The last day of September and Great Dixter (http://www.greatdixter.co.uk) is still comfortably pumping out rushes of sheer happiness all over the garden. I am part of a monthly study group led by the tirelessly enthusiastic Kemal Mehdi – friend of the late Christopher Lloyd and Dixter Trustee. It is always the same – as we turn the corner from the Front Meadow and get the first dancing glimpse of the Barn Garden beyond the dark yew entrance – no one can help that moony Dixter smile wash over their faces. The rest of the world stops for a day as we get looking, hungrily.

Salvia confertiflora

This wonderful – tender – sage has tall spires of glowing crimson flowers on soft, felted calyces with bold corrugated green leaves. It has the perfect common name – ‘red velvet sage’ – and is dangerously irrisistable here against the rich reddish brown of the wonderful barn roof tiles. The daisy in the background here is the tall Erigeron annuus which is one of the late summer leitmotiv plants at Dixter. It works especially well when used lightly as it can look a bit marooned and leggy when there is too much of it in one go. The elegant arching foliage belongs to the compact and surprisingly elegant pampass grass – Cortaderia selloana ‘Pumilla’. Time to throw out all prejudice about pampass grass perhaps and enjoy instead the elegant, slender evergreen foliage and soft white upright plumes?

Cyperus eragrostis

Growing near the pond at the centre of the Barn Garden – but introducing itself with style up the steps and into the barn itself – the yellow greens and bronzes of this supposed bog sedge glow vividly against the brilliant red of Cotoneaster horizantalis behind it.

Kniphofia rooperi

At the top of the steps is a stand of fantastically robust and brilliantly coloured red hot pokers. Evergreen architectural foliage and a reliable offering of orange-red torches every October. All this against irridescent dashes of magenta – the incredibly long flowering Salvia microphylla ‘Cerro Potosi’, the rich purply blue of even longer flowering Geranium ‘Rozanne’ and the intense coral red of Hesperantha coccinea Major (Hesperantha the new name for Schizostylis). Every member of the happy club muttering quietly to themselves already.

For really trying to understand the impact of certain plants and how they work together there is nothing to compare with looking closely at any garden again and again throughout the year. At Dixter – famous for a density of successional planting that few other gardens could even begin to emulate – visiting and revisiting is relentlessly rewarding. What is even more energising is the tone of happy and constant experimentation that Head Gardener, Fergus Garrett now sets for his wonderful team. There are many moments at Dixter that are beyond the manpower and skill of most gardens but there are also plenty of ideas that will work really effectively elsewhere.

THE REALLY GREAT INDIVIDUAL PLANT

Taking the time to track down a particular variety and then giving it space and growing it well.

Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Mme Emile Mouillere’

Christopher Lloyd always declared this to be the best pure white mophead hydrangea – a clear white rounded flower head with faint pink markings which gradually fade to a soft speckled pale greeny- pink. It needs to be given space away from brighter more magenta toned pinks or it will appear to be almost salmony in colour which might irritate – well it would irritate me. On its own or amongst green foliage, this late summer colour is gorgeously subtle and happy to be occasionally illuminated by the occasional freshly emergent white flowerhead.

Actaea simplex Atropurpurpurea Group

Looking through a stepped yew arch from the High Garden down into the orchard garden a group of Actaea simplex are planted, brilliantly, by themselves. The slender white bottle brush flowerheads catch the early evening sun – dancing afternoon fireworks leaning and fizzing in every direction.

Eryngium pandanifolium ‘Physic Purple’

Well admittedly this monumental plant – situated at the bench end of the Long Border is hardly on its own – but it is a fantastic year round architectural presence with a rosette stiff grey green leaves and wonderful towering – 6 or 7 feet high – branched heads of tight wine coloured flowers from October to December. I am on a mission to find a place for this plant.

Ficus carica ‘Brunswick’

A wonderful fig grown against the South facing wall on the Lower Terrace. Worth stopping to admire the rhythmic patterns formed by the overlapping deeply cut leaves. Even better to discover it is a reliable and heavy fruiting fig in the UK with greeny-yellow skinned fruit with sweet tasting pink flesh.

AND THEN THERE ARE THE BRILLIANT PAIRS OF PLANTS:

Cotoneaster horizontalis and Rubus cockburnianus ‘Goldenvale’

Cotoneaster horizontalis is hardly a fashionable plant but is used brilliantly at Great Dixter – clothing the base of walls and flights of steps with its dynamic fans of branches, tiny glossy green leaves and at this time of the year generous beading of glossy red berries. Here in the Walled Garden, the combination with the lime green leaves and chalky white stems of the white stemmed bramble, Rubus cockburnianus ‘Goldenvale’ is exquisite.

Cosmos bipinnatus ‘Dazzler’ and Molinia caerulea subsp. arundinacea ‘Transparent’

Not an earth shattering combination but easy to recreate – the rich colour of the Cosmos and the airy texture of the grass working so well together.

Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Sea Foam’ and Fuchsia magellanica ‘Aurea’

An absolutely classic combination of Hydrangea and Fuchsia – one of my favourite pairings which lasts so well in late summer through to autumn. Great Dixter is brilliant at bringing a person round to certain types of plant. I have always been slightly reluctant to pick golden leaved forms of any plant, but as with the Rubus this Fuchsia is the best of its kind with yellow green leaves veined in beetroot with dark red stems and fantastically desirable glowing pink pendant flowers.

Paris polyphylla and Heuchera villosa

The comparatively rare Himalayan woodland perennial, Paris polyphylla has elegant layers of leaves and fine whiskery petals on upright stems. Even before the arrival of the wonderful surprise of the bright orange seed heads that is yet to come, this combination with the graceful Heuchara with its spires of tiny greenish white is graceful and covetable.

A DIFFERENT SORT OF PAIRING – WHEN ONE PLANT IS REPEATED IN THE GARDEN WITH DIFFERENT COMPANIONS:

Salvia ‘Indigo Spires and Geranium wallichianum ‘Buxton’s Variety’

The elegant violet blue spires of the Salvia in a gentle combination with the paler blue of the Geranium billowing beneath.

Salvia ‘Indigo Spires’ and Cosmos x Dahlia ‘Mexican Black’

The depth of red in the Cosmos x Dahlia ‘Mexican Black’ brings out the richness of the the Salvia – a very different, velvety effect.

Salvia ‘Indigo Spires’ and Dahlia ‘Hillcrest Candy’

Suddenly a more playful, sweet shop effect with the clear pink and white of the Dahlia energising the colour of the darker Salvia.

AND FINALLY THERE ARE THE ALMOST PSYCHEDELIC DIXTER MOMENTS WHICH MAKE VISITING THE GARDEN SO UNSTOPPABLY JOYFUL.

Salvia ‘Amistad’ with Cosmos X Dahlia ‘Mexican Black’ and Hydrangea aspera Villosa Group

I am finding this Salvia dangerously enticing. There is something about the glowing purple of the flower, the black-purple of the calyces and the horizontal spread of the bright green leaves that creates a particularly tantalising, slightly drunken, fluttering tapestry. The rich red of the Dahlia x Cosmos and the way the flower heads pop up and look out in every direction like dainty periscopes adds to the dancing mood and then the laid back softness of the Hydrangea adds a smokey haze which deepens the mood.

Persicaria orientalis, Amaranthus ‘Autumn Palette’, Aster thompsonii Canna ‘Phasion’, Aster laterifolius var. horizontalis – plus a white Cosmos and an orange Crocosmia.

This is an amazing combination. The Amaranthus is completely wild – outrageous cinnamon suede flower heads and completely mismatching jack-and- the-beanstalk fresh green leaves. The bright pink arcs of the Persicaria orientalis – which are repeated wonderfully all over the garden – frame the scene which is enriched with the soft mauve of the aster, the crazy stripiness of the Canna (the RHS description of the Canna reads “bronze-purple leaves striped with pink, ageing to shades of pink and orange and large deep orange flowers in summer) and dashes of white cosmos and orange crocosmia complete this utterly celebratory planting.

Crataegus persimilis ‘Prunifolia’, Yew, Persicaria orientalis, Aconitum carmichaelii ‘Kelmscott’ and Tagetes ‘Cinnabar’

Crateagus persimilis ‘Prunifolia’is a wonderful hawthorn with glossy leaves, white flowers and deep red fruits. Known for its dramatic autumn colour it is worth noting just how early and how vivd this colour is. The Aconitum is vivid and compelling (at Dixter apparently Aconitum is divided pretty much every year to maintain this kind of flower power) and the stripy red and gold of the marigold keeps the energy going – as ever the broad stretch of flat green provided by the yew pulls everything together.

Zinnia ‘Aztec Sunset’

At the beginning of the Lower Terrace there is a stone trough which always has something pretty seductive going on. At the end of September the trough is bursting with these neatly kaleidoscopic Zinnia – so cheerily stripy and circular that you can only smile and persuade yourself that every additional moment like this is worth going for.

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