autumn flowers

After a shaky start, September is settling into a gorgeous run of autumn days.  In the entrance garden the autumn flowering crocus are getting into their stride, yesterday some clumps of violet blue flowers opening wide in the sun, today more purplish spikes showing through the gravel. They are Crocus speciosus, initially raised in small pots and planted out in the ground in March 2015 when I could see what else was coming up.  I've heard grumbles from other gardeners in the past who tried autumn flowering crocus that didn't come to anything, but there are a great many species and varieties, as I only began to fully appreciate when I looked at some specialist bulb catalogues.  Some are rare and expensive.  I went for one that was relatively cheap, partly because I wanted a lot.  A group of three bulbs of something the size of a crocus doesn't honestly make much of an impact in an acre of wild and woolly garden.  But also varieties that survive and bulk up well tend to be cheaper, so price is often a good indication of reliability and longevity.  On my experience so far I would heartily recommend Crocus speciosus for light soil.  The small bulb expert whose garden I visited last autumn with the garden club had warm words for 'Zephyr', but the balance of advice I found online said that it would like a moister soil than I was planning to offer it.  Now the C. speciosus are out I am wishing I had bought some more.  I still could from Pottertons, but I was trying to be sensible about how many bulbs I could afford or would have time to plant.

In the back garden the marginally tender Salvia involucrata 'Bethellii' is putting on a great show.  It is a big plant, taller than I am, and from tentative looking patches of leaves in spring it spends the summer sending up long flowering stems, which by now are tipped with vivid pink heads of typically sage shaped flowers, fairly large.  Knowing that it was slightly tender I tried growing my first plant in a pot in the shelter of the conservatory, which it detested.  Let loose in a border it lets rip.  This plant has been in situ since March 2014, so has made it through three normal coastal Essex winters but not yet been exposed to a really cold one.  It is on fairly free draining soil on a slope, which probably helps.  I ought to have taken cuttings as an insurance policy, but so far I haven't, and the heated propagator is now full.

In the same bed is Kniphofia caulescens, which is still only thinking about flowering, its spikes of buds not yet showing any hint of colour.  When the flowers do open they will be red and yellow, which doesn't go particularly well with the last of the asters and the pink chrysanthemums, but by that stage of the autumn who is grumbling?  It is just nice still to have flowers coming out at all. The leaves look superficially more like a yucca, glaucous and held in clumps on short trunks.  The plant can become a bit tattered by the end of winter, but all it needs is for the dead brown outer leaves to be cleared away.  Mine was planted fifteen years ago since when it has survived two very cold winters and the long wet winter that followed, so despite looking distinctly exotic I think you can safely regard it as hardy, at least in the south of England.

There are more autumn flowers to talk about, but now it is gone half past eight and I should like my dinner.