The Autumn Border

Going to the bottom of the garden you have in an undulating shape our largest border which is called the Autumn Border. The colours have been inspired from India and are yellow, purple, orange, pink. Rupert Goldby told me his ladies would never use yellow, and in fact one lady had taken his use of yellow out. I think that is her loss. We have plenty of Asters, and we also have Heleniums Sahins early flowerer. If you dead head that regularly it will continue to flower for 3 months. There is virtually nothing else that will do that. Standing at the back is Achillea Gold Plate which is like a tall flat plate. I dithered with using this for many years as thought it would be too harsh a colour, but it has been a huge success and I saw it growing at Kew. You only dead head it when the the flowers go brown. It is huge and self supporting, Monardas take their place and what beautiful colours they are, sometimes they turn white with mildew but on the whole not. If I ruled out the colour yellow i would have Monarda, purple, bright pink, and purple. We have various grasses, two huge ones which are called Miscanthus sinensis Yakushima dwarf, though the word dwarf is hardly applicable. Aconitum Carmichaeli Royal Flush, which comes up with beautiful pink foliage, This is deep blue, Sunningdale Yellow , Monarda Melissa, Monarda Cambridge Scarlet, Sorbus Joseph Rock, two of them, with pale orange berries. One of the most beautiful grasses I have ever seen and it is called Miscanthus Silberspinne and came from my favourite nursery, Marchants Hardy Plants, Graham Gough.

  • Texas Sage in Corfu
  • White alliums
  • Tulips in April
  • Yellow garland in Calcutta
  • Helenium Sahins early flowe
  • Dahlias in the par Terre, Miss Julie
  • Lovely shot of the par terre
  • Stemmacantha centauroides
  • Arabella s garden
Penhryn Castle Cornus Kousa, pink
View from the terrace in Corfu

.

3 September, 2021 Pettifers Blog

James and I and Candy Kelly went to Cottesbrooke to try and find some inspiration from their garden to improve this garden. If one does not do this from time to time you do not get new ideas and ones garden remains static. Not only did I see several new plants but several ideas of how to put them together. The first new border that I saw did make one gasp it was so good. It was a long border with repetition running along it with height and.several dahlias ,but restful as the same colour. I took several photos in order to show Polly what we had seen. Luckily we both love the same dahlias. James preferred the maroon ones, so I thought we could have a section of them as well. The colour scheme was pink and the only thing that I wondered was what was going on earlier on. The owner of the house was totally charming and gave us a lot of his time. The new head gardener was very impressive and I would like her to meet Polly. The new dahlias were called Honka which I have talked about before and now seen in the flesh. They are better when you see them in the life. It was a very special day and I wont forget it for a long time. I hope they both come here to visit.