September marks the return to school and the beginning of autumn in the garden

Looking down the rill at Charlton Farm

A Plant Hunter’s Paradise

I was lucky enough last week to be able to attend the wonderful Specialist Plant Sale held at Charlton Farm, near Malmesbury, in aid of ‘The Generous Gardener’. The charity organises spring and autumn plant sales and gardening lectures throughout the year at Charlton Farm and Rodmarton Hall – both highly recommended for anyone who loves plants and gardening.

Charlton Farm garden has been developed by Sarah Rivett-Carnac over the last 12 years and is now a mature space that delights the eye and the mind. The influence of the Arts & Crafts movement as well as the more contemporary planting of the New Perennial Movement are evident throughout and the gardens provide a perfect backdrop for such well known growers as Old Court Nurseries, Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants, Riverside Bulbs and Special Plants Nursery as well as smaller, more specialist growers of salvias, hellebores and hardy perennials.

A quiet corner for contemplation

Large areas of the garden are curated to attract wildlife

I joined gardening enthusiasts to browse the beautifully grown plants on offer – knowing that the growers could give expert advice on all the plants they sold.

Enthusiastic gardeners snap up the plants on offer

I was delighted to meet our good friends from Exedra Nursery at the plant sale. Julie Dolphin and Steve Richardson, run a treasure chest of a nursery and shop at Painswick Rococco Gardens – they sell Muntons Traditional Plant Supports as well as a host of other good names!

Our good friends from Exedra Nursery

What caught my eye? Ever since RHS Chelsea Flower Show in September 2021, I have been aware of the explosion in varieties of echinacea and salvia available from growers – the show dazzled us with hues that I had never seen before. Last week I picked out two varieties that I have planted together weaving down my long, hot border – Echinacea ‘Tequila Sunrise’ and Salvia ‘Blue Monrovia’; their colours complement each other perfectly and the shorter, bushier salvia will mask the bare stems of the echinacea flowers.

Echinacea ‘Tequila Sunset’

Salvia ‘Blue Monrovia’

Container planting

September is a good time to assess the large containers that we planted up in late May and note what has worked and what we might not want to repeat.

I was drawn to the success of the planting in this lead container at Charlton Farm, filled with salvias, helichrysum, lobelia and aeonium – very simple colours but striking and it will keep flowering for a long season.

A sumptuous container at Charlton Farm

This year I planted my own copper containers with plectranthus (a silvery-leaved South African ground cover plant); purple verbena; deep purple Clary Sage; lime-green nicotiana; dahlia ‘David Howard’ and some home-grown yellow/orange cosmos. The plants were very slow to take off and sky-rise-dwelling snails took out the early dahlia buds as they formed but, suddenly, the container has taken on form and colour and I am pleased with the result – and will be even more so as I pick off the last of the snails!

A copper planter by the outdoor dining room

One of my larger terracotta pots suffered badly last winter but I am determined to keep planting it for as long as it holds together. This year I had some stand-dressing plants that were surplus to requirements at Chelsea and decided to plant them up as a black and white container. I am surprised at how successful it is! I have deadheaded every few evenings and fed weekly with a liquid seaweed fertilizer and am thrilled with the result. The plant with dark foliage is Ipomoea batatas which has almost insignificant pinky-purple flowers which, just like Morning Glory, fade the day they open so do not distract the eye from the main theme.

My black and white container

Finally, a shot of a new container that I shall feature in my next journal. We have had a number of requests from clients for steel rings to go round specimen trees, such as mature olives, or raised planters such as this one, without bases and in different heights and sizes, that can be set in groups directly on a soil or a gravel base. This is one that has not been exposed to the elements long enough to take on a rusted patina but I thought that Echinacea ‘Pink Perfection’ and Pennisetum advena ‘Fireworks’ set it off well.

A new raised planter

In the next journal I shall take a closer look at the autumn garden and at some of the new ideas that you have given us.