October can be a radiant, glowing time of year and the short days of autumn are still giving us a blaze of colour. It’s been a busy few weeks here – I’ve had a lovely day out with Elle at the Gardeners’ World Autumn Fair at Audley End. An event full of gardening inspiration, wonderful plant nurseries and plenty of ideas to take away. I was very excited to meet Frances Tophill and listen to her inspiring talk on ‘Colour For The Garden’.
This is my favourite season for grasses. We don’t have many grasses here (I plan to plant more and did buy a pennisetum and molinia at Audley End) but grasses have that rare quality in a plant – they sound so good. They catch the breeze as it passes through their leaves turning it into music.
I love the stipa family – Stipa gigantea as it’s name suggests is big but it’s very delicate and very versatile. We have lots of Stipa arundinacea or pheasant grass on the banks of our bog garden. I love it’s leaves with the russet tones and how the fluffy seed heads flop and fall everywhere. It also seeds everywhere and the seedlings are very easy to pot up and replant elsewhere. We have Calamagrostis ‘Karl Foerster’ – one in each of the four beds in our new Italianate style walled garden which brings wonderful bronze vertical interest at this time of year. And we’re planting blocks of Carex ‘Phoenix Green’ on our parterre – a lovely low growing green grass that will look good all year. We are currently giving the eight beds on our parterre a major revamp. They suffered badly in the summer drought, were planted over 25 years ago and quite honestly were looking very tired. Gary and Clyde have done a brilliant job installing new steel edging, then we plan to refresh the soil with homemade garden compost and manure and replant with new plants. Matching some of the plants that were there already but also planting new – the focus being on more drought tolerant plants such as lavender, nepeta, echinacea, sedums, lambs ears, hardy geraniums and salvias.
We are also fully into bulb planting. Not tulips yet as it’s too early – November and December are the key months for those – but alliums, daffodils, Iris reticulata, lilies, fritillaries, camassias, hyacinth’s and scillas are all going in. To plant bulbs is a wonderful act of hope – looking forward to the excitement and promise of spring.
The cosmos, dahlias, verbena bonariensis and teasels are still looking good and we’ll squeeze the very last bloom from them. We never take anything out of the garden or cut anything back in October unless it’s looking dire because the birds love the seedheads and the slightly unruly decline is part of the beauty.
Kate Elliott came to Columbine Hall in 1997 when she was sixteen. She is now head gardener but also helps with managing the property generally and in conducting guided tours.