Garden Studios

FIFTY years ago, likelihood is that by now your dahlias would has been blackened by frosts and your borders will be looking as if someone were through them with a blowtorch. Today, though, it’s likely that your dahlias will go on blooming for one more two or three weeks a minimum of and that in case you had the great sense to plant late-flowering perennials your beds and borders might be faraway from finished.

Call it global warming, call it climate change, the very last thing i need to do is worry you. If the scientists can’t agree on anything, then from a gardener’s perspective the very best approach is to just accept the alteration inside the seasons and plant accordingly. i am not being all head-in-the-sand about it, just pragmatic.

The milder weather does run on well into October, and the late-flowering daisies are great at bringing autumn sunshine into our lives. Seek out Rudbeckia fulgida var. deamii and, just when other summer blooms are fading, you’ll enjoy a late burst of golden glory.

These black-centred daisies are produced in quantity and although the plant grows a few feet high, it is self-supporting and a great choice for the middle of a bed or border.

Look, too, at heleniums; plants that have the unfortunate common name of sneezeweed.

They’ve never had that effect on me, and, thanks to the timing of their display, they are certainly not to be sniffed at, producing their reflex-petalled daisy flowers from late summer on into autumn. Tere are bronze and mahogany tints to be had here, in varieties such as ‘Ruby Tuesday’, as well as rich yellows from the likes of ‘Buterpat’.

Heleniums are rather taller than many rudbeckias and so will need to be planted further back within the border.

Michaelmas daisies have earned themselves a bad name over the years, falling prey to disfiguring mildew that coats their leaves in a grey mould. But modern varieties – the New England Asters and their relatives – are more robust and brighter than that dreary old grey-mauve which PEST-was once the fashion. Hunt down ‘Alma Potschke’ for a vivid cerise pink.

With ‘Autumn Joy’ sedums on the front of a bed or border, and these late-flowering daisies ranked behind them, their drifts separated by swirling seas of decorative grasses, you will discover yourself in possession of a border that comes into its own when the gardens of most other folk are fading. It truly is the suitable face of 1-upmanship.

For additional information on his range of gardening products, visit alantitchmarsh.com.

TOP TIP

TURN YOUR COMPOST HEAP ONCE PER WEEK, AND NOT ADD DISEASED OR PEST-RIDDEN MATERIAL BECAUSE THE INSECTS AND DISEASES MAY SURVIVE AND TRANSFER BACK TO HEALTHY PLANTS.