One of the talks I regularly give is entitled 'Gardens to Visit in Autumn’ and it always seems to come as a surprise to people that there are just so many stunning gardens to visit in Britain at this time of year.
For me, it is the most wonderful time of year to be in a garden; six months of growth leads to this dramatic final display of fruits, seeds and colourful leaves, which normally lasts from mid-September until early November. Of course, the vagaries of the British weather always make it difficult to predict the exact time when the autumn leaves will be at their most colourful, but this year — after a relatively early start to autumn with some leaves turning colour in mid-September — it looks like the best colours will be on display in mid to late October.
The further north you travel to visit an autumn garden, the earlier the colours are likely to peak.
Although there are of course many gardens with herbaceous borders and autumn-flowering bulbs that can maintain colour and interest well into autumn, I am always drawn to good collections of trees and shrubs, because these will invariably be looking at their best at this time of year.
Wakehurst is a wonderful mixture of botanical science and horticulture. There are three gardens, woodland walks and the Loder Valley Nature Reserve to explore. The National Trust’s most visited property isn’t just for gardeners. Children can be entertained with family-friendly activities as well as 180 acres to explore. Popular attractions include the Himalayan Glade, Millennium seed bank and the Water Gardens.
Visit the Seed Café or Stables Restaurant for a great range of meals and snacks.
I garden at Spring Cottage in the Cotswolds. It may sound idyllic, but I live in one of the bleakest, highest villages in Gloucestershire. My garden faces due south with far-reaching views over sheep and small fields, but south-westerly winds sweep over the plateau, either scorching my plants to a crisp, or bunching them together like tango dancers in a knee-locked clinch. The site has two saving graces: frost often rolls away down the hill towards Bourton-on-the-Water, and there is a spring that trickles melodically out of one wall.
The watercourse means that some areas of my third of an acre never dry out. For that I am eternally grateful, as rain often evades us in the high Cotswolds. It streaks the sky to the west with slanting grey lines that seem to taunt me. Winter is less reluctant: it comes in with a vengeance every year, but spring is tardy and arrives a good three weeks later here than it does in low-lying valleys just three miles away.
I practise the sport of extreme gardening for much of the year; five years here have given me a weather-beaten glow and lots more wrinkles. And that’s before you factor in the bantams who create craters in the lawn, and four grandchildren under five who thoughtfully harvested most of my pears 10 days ago.
My garden is scrutinised by hikers on the Macmillan Way, which runs just outside the wall, plus family, friends and locals. They expect great things of me as a garden writer and an RHS committee member: sadly it doesn’t stop me making mistakes.
Dahlias have long been a passion – they have been my pride and delight since I was a small child. Then they were disbudded and grown on allotments as dinner plates to be picked for the local show. In the garden these giants stuck out like sore thumbs, so much so that dahlias were all but abandoned by the Sixties. The late Christopher Lloyd of Great Dixter kept the faith and did much to rehabilitate them as garden plants. I now serve on the RHS dahlia panel and we have many interesting discussions, referring to disbudding in hushed tones, but fear not. Our AGMs are awarded to good garden plants only.
I am ashamed of my dahlias this year. I planted the tubers in mid-March, the correct time here, but the hot days and cold nights of April meant huge extremes of temperature. However, my real undoing was planting them out too early, lulled into a false sense of security by an early season. The garden suffered two frosts in the following weeks and my dahlias were checked, although they survived. It may have been better if they had succumbed. The driest spring on record didn’t help and two months later the three-feet high canes were still more evident than the dahlias. When rain finally came they could not respond and are now beyond hope. I am living proof that tender plants shouldn’t go in the garden before the middle of June, however seductive April and May seem.
All dahlias are late this year. We began to assess the trial at RHS Wisley on August 11 and even the National Collection, at Varfell Farm near Penzance in Cornwall, is running three weeks late. There they leave their tubers in the ground over winter. I have to lift mine, but for the last two years they’ve perished in the garden shed despite being shrouded in blankets and bubble wrap. So this year I must find a better place to store them.
I can recommend several single, dark-leaved dahlias bred by Dr Keith Hammett who was awarded the Reginald Cory Cup by the RHS in 2008 for his work on dahlia breeding in New Zealand, a ruggedly exposed country. 'Magenta Star’ is a pristine magenta-pink and 'Dovegrove’ a rich red velvety single. Both are AGM varieties that appear on the RHS trial as “benchmark” singles grown for comparison. Hammett has a new dark-leaved, single yellow dahlia called 'Mystic Haze’, which I haven’t grown, that has just won the Best New Plant at the Horticultural Trades Association National Plant Show. It will be launched at next year’s Chelsea.
Keith Hammett, once a National Dahlia Society judge, originally bred for the showbench, not the garden. Exhibiting sharpened his critical eye and gave him a love for the neat and tidy bloom. His scientific background enabled him to source dahlias (both wild and cultivated) from across the world and he amassed a large gene pool, key to breeding hybrid vigour.
The craze for seed-raised singles with dark foliage, or dark red to black fuller-flowered varieties continues. However, there are many excellent double dahlias that come in shades of lemon or pink, white or peach. The pale pink decorative 'Karma Prospero’, or the almost white 'Eveline’, with her touch of lilac, shine in any border. These are largely ignored, but it’s time the pendulum swung towards them – double forms have longer lasting flowers that normally appear between July and October.
They also cut well, and a visit to The National Trust’s Dunster Castle in Somerset reminded me of how good they are. They bedecked every room. If you want to see colourful dahlias used to full effect in superb colour-themed planting, visit Wollerton Old Hall Garden near Market Drayton in Shropshire (01630 685760; www.wollertonoldhallgarden.com). Incidentally, the best nursery I’ve found for buying a range of tubers, still my preferred method of growing, is Rose Cottage Plants in Essex
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