Mahonia Lionel FortescueThe garden is beginning to look more autumnal now that we have had the first of the autumn winds and I am thinking of consigning some of the summer bedding plants to the compost heap to replant the containers with spring bulbs ready for next season’s early color.
Insects have already begun to slow down as a result of the cooler temperatures although there are plenty of drunken wasps on the wind fall apples! When I was about to dead head a group of Cephalaria gigantea I noticed three Ladybirds clustered under one of the seed heads – a gentle reminder not to be too tidy this winter and remove their lodgings! This giant Scabious like plant is one of my favorite perennials for the back of a border. The primrose yellow flowers are borne over a long season through the summer months atop wiry stems that push up from vigorous clumps of coarse leaves. The plant can reach several feet when in flower and defies the wind by flexing its leafless stems. The bees too love this plant and hang on doggedly to the flowers swaying in the breeze! The seed heads are attractive brown balls, standing on stiff stems and providing food for birds, free plants as they shed their seeds and (obviously!) shelter for insects.
Many of the perennials in the garden have finished flowering with some heavy rain and gales removing the last of the petals on the Echinacea and taller Rudbeckia ‘Herbstsonne’. The lower growing R. ‘Goldsturm’ is still in full flower – a sheet of gold and brown in one border and in the cutting garden, but the Sedums are tempting the most insects with their flat heads of flowers that are full of nectar. As well as the variety ‘Herbstfreude’ (Autumn Joy) they love the deeper pink ‘Abbeydore’ and ‘Matrona’ which has purple-pink flowers set off by deep purple gray leaves on sturdy, upright stems.
Through the winter, we see fewer insects in the garden but there are bees on the wing if it is mild from January onwards. One plant that they are very fond of is Pulmonaria (Lungwort), one of the first perennials to flower, along with Hellebores of all sorts. The work of hungry early bees on the Lenten Rose (H. x hybridus) flowers produces plenty of seedlings which we are loathed to compost in case one is exceptionally beautiful, although they all are to me!
I will shortly be making a trip to my local Notcutt’s garden center to look for more plants to flower through the winter, giving us welcome color and helping foraging insects as well. I am very tempted by a winter Clematis (C. cirrhosa) - the bees love to climb right into the flowers - and also another Mahonia with scented yellow flowers after Christmas. As well as the flowers which are a magnet for insects, the blue berries which follow are often taken by birds.
I’m sure that as well as the two plants on my shopping list there will be a few more in the back of the car for the journey home!
