The umbrellas were up and down like yo yo’s last week at Harlow Carr. It appears the autumnal chill has descended over the country and the only glimmer of warmth is our success at the Beijing Olympics! We have done so well with our swimming medals, and you could have done a fairly credible backstroke in the stream in the gardens with all the deluges of rain too!. Still, the resilient plants are still flowering their hearts out, and despite everything providing a magnificent show to our intrepid, mainly sodden visitors.
We take a critical view on the main borders at this time of the year, supposedly this is the peak viewing time, and we decide what has worked really well and performed, and what needs to be consigned to the compost heap. You really need to be very critical if you want to keep the integrity of your borders, otherwise the thugs take over and before you know it you have an unbalanced mish-mash of colour and textures. We decided earlier on this year to add some height and structure with some gorgeous umbellifers and ordered some seed in. Ferula communis (giant fennel) grows to 16ft in the wild with acid yellow umbels, and in contrast Angelica pachycarpa (a short lived NZ perennial) with glossy dark green leaves and a scented umbel in late summer along with Selinum carvifolium both approx 3ft, so great for the front of the border. These are dotted around the beds and should add an extra zing to the display next year.
Angelica gigas seeded itself in one of the beds and looks stunning with the heleniums and eryngiums – can’t claim any credit for that one! The Sidalcea ‘Wine Cup’ has flopped for the last time. It was really disappointing, a great magenta flower-spike, but collapsed in a big heap, so I’m moving it to another part of the garden to see if it will perform in a different location in the garden. Sidalcea ‘Elsie Heugh’ in contrast has been magnificent, with dainty pink flowers and has stalwartly resisted collapsing in the inclement weather conditions – so she’s staying! We don’t as a rule use plastic plant supports of any kind, for some of the heavier clumps we use bamboo rods pushed in hoop style which works really well, much less intrusive and free.
Plant editing is a favourite occupation of mine, it so rewarding to get up close and personal with the flower borders which this year have done us proud, and very satisfying to see so many members of the public with their cameras snapping away and the stream of questions of how, when and why!
Anyway, back to it, the squelchy mass underfoot may have stopped us mowing the grass, but the flowers battle on, long live the flowers!
Sarah Bell
Team Leader - Gardens West