August Blooms

A Seasonal Celebration of the Land, Garden & Nature

Harvest, Dahlias, Abundance, Summer Holidays, Corn dollies, Ripening, Sunflowers, Bare feet, Barbecues, Wheeling Swifts, Fruit & Berries, Summer Waning, Chillier Evenings 

Issue 25 August 2020

August Blooms

In the August garden it's all about keeping the colour coming. Regular watering, feeding, pruning, deadheading (taking off the finished flowers) and of course harvesting, all help to extend the show of colour through August. So grab your watering can, secateurs, some plant feed and a vase for your pickings!

 

I love the riot of colour in the garden at this time of year - all bright reds, yellows, hot pinks, vibrant purples and oranges. There's a host of fantastic late season interest plants that will continue to flower in your garden for weeks yet - rudbeckias, helianthemums, verbena, penstemons, zinnias, anemones, dahlias & achillea. Plant these bold bloomers with swathes of grasses and you’ll be guaranteed a late flowering show well into Autumn.

Here are a selection of my August favs for the garden:

 

 Verbena bonariensis

This darling of many a Chelsea garden designer looks fantastic in late summer. Tall slender stems put on a startling amount of growth each year creating a haze of purple flowers at head height. These tightly packed purple flowers are pollinator magnets and as they bob around in the wind they're alive with buzzing bees and butterflies! 

Because of its light airy looking appearance verbena looks fabulous planted en masse with tall grasses, to give a transparent screen effect. A great border filler which will also help prop up some of your less upright plants.

 

Echinops

Any eye-catching, undemanding plant that copes well in poor soil, grabs my attention! Echinops falls into that category. Blue pom poms abuzz with hordes of bees, on top of tall stems!  Commonly known as Globe Thistle (for visually obvious reasons) this is a handsome architectural plant that brings plenty of late interest to the garden.

Echinops get quite tall so are best planted towards the back of your beds but somewhere you can appreciate the blue globes and all their visiting pollinators! They look great planted with pink Japanese anemones, agastache, yellow achillea and purple salvias; plus they're great for drying! 

Echinops leaves are thistle- like and quite prickly so are best hidden behind shorter front of border plants like Geranium 'Rozanne', which is in flower at the same time. In my garden echinops tend to freely self-seed and can take over. Keep an eye out for new seedlings and either replant elsewhere or pot on to give to friends.

Look out for varieties Echinops ritro 'Veitch's Blue' and Echinops bannaticus 'Taplow Blue'.

 

 

Echinacea

Echinacea purpurea is definitely one of my staple late flowering perennials with large pink daisy flowers that start in mid summer and go on to the autumn. At the centre of the flowers is a prominent orange cone that lasts on the stem after the petals drop. These cones give the plant its common name of Coneflower.

Echinacea are easy to grow in free draining soil as long as they have plenty of space to spread; they're true bee and butterfly magnets and they make great cut flowers, lasting for a couple of weeks in a vase.

There are many different types of Echinacea but I recommend sticking with Echinacea purpurea varieties as they tend to be stronger and come back reliably each year.

Grasses

Amongst my favourite grasses for planting schemes are:

Calamagrostis angustifolia ‘Karl Foerster’ a great long season of interest starting with with bright green shoots appearing with the spring bulbs through to now when the tall, upright & sentry straight stems are golden brown.  The stems last all winter looking great with frost on them and are simply cut down low in February. 

Anemanthemele lessoniana or Pheasant's Tail Grass. This grass gives year round structure and colour forming a loose hummock of moving fiery orange and yellow strands, before putting up sprays of floaty flowerheads in late summer. This grass positively shimmers in the late summer sunshine. Looks great planted with dark red aquilegias and astrantias

Stipa tenuissima a short wafty grass that can be planted towards the front of borders where it will merge with flowers to create a soft, moving stream of colour.

Stipa gigantea a tall arching firework-type of grass with cascades of soft plumes that look fantastic backlit by the evening sun

 

These are just a few of the great range of fabulous plants you can include in your planting schemes for August. Watch out for future BaldwinBotanica blogs when I'll tell you more about plants for seasonal interest. 

However you decide to spend these hot August days, do try and get outside and appreciate the turning of the year.  I'll be back with more August highlights next week but in the meantime I'd love to hear what you spot and/or photograph.

If you have any questions you can reach me via my website www.plotgardendesign.co.uk follow/like PLOT Garden Design on social media to receive my seasonal updates and photos.

Keep well, breathe and remember to look outside and notice the details.