I have delayed this column until it can no longer tempt Nature. I resisted writing it for August, its happy subject, because Mother Nature, that human fiction, is ever so cruel: she seems to be provoked by statements of satisfaction. So here it is now when the month is just past and she cannot ruin it.
August in Britain has been heaven for gardeners. I know this tribute will not be echoed by many of you abroad. Gardening in central to southern Italy has been a nightmare when daytime temperatures hit 40C. In Greece and many of the islands, it has been as bad. In early spring I wrote of the Mediterranean Garden Society’s garden at Sparoza outside Athens and the widening of its range of plants in response to the changing climate. Plants from Africa now grow there too, but even they have had a nightmare summer, so hot that they have shrivelled.
Meanwhile I have been enjoying an August like those of the mid-1980s. My garden in late summer has never looked better.
What has been so good? With few exceptions, August’s sunny days were never really hot. I have been scarred by so many droughts that I withdraw into a basement in the daytime when clear blue skies persist for more than four days. This year, blue skies were edged with ominous clouds each evening, but they soon broke up and led to showers or storms. Plants benefit from rain, but so does the soil. It remains workable and allows weeds to be pulled out with satisfying ease. I have extracted yards of bindweed by the root without breaking it.
The midday sunshine was usually cool and broken by clouds. Gardens never look their best in a noon-to-early afternoon glare. Those who open them for the National Garden Scheme have to receive visitors by day, the worst time for viewing. Professional photographers prefer to take their garden pictures in the early morning, from 6am onwards, or in the early evening. The light is softer and as the sun goes west in the evening, shadows begin to fall.
This year, high noon was seldom cloud-free. Crossing my fingers, I prayed for the broken light to last all month. It did. Thank heavens I was not frying on a Mediterranean beach with nothing between me and the glare but a half-read paperback.
There have been so many winners, but here are three that receive my August gold medals and deserve to win yours: crocosmias of all colours; phloxes, ditto; and hydrangeas. Each of them has expanded since the beginning of the 1970s so that new possibilities have opened in British gardens. Gardening does not stand still, least of all in Britain.
Crocosmias have never had it so good. Sixty years ago, gardeners were wary of them. As their corms derive from South Africa, they were assumed to be marginally hardy. Breeders then improved them, spearheaded by the magnificent fiery red Crocosmia Lucifer from Blooms nursery in Norfolk. Lucifer proved to be hardy, as did other selections since. I have never lost a carefully chosen crocosmia to a cold winter, not even to the killer of 2022-23.
Excellent varieties have proliferated. My season began with the brightest yellow, Paul’s Best Yellow, about 2.5 feet tall. The fans of green leaves complement the typical sprays of flower on curving stems, strong enough to need no staking. Next up came Hellfire, also unmissably good. Its dark scarlet flowers are more rounded but they show up vividly if dotted round the garden.
When Hellfire faded mid-month, in came my best in class, Crocosmia Emberglow. It flowers in a muted shade of fiery red, justifying its name. There is nothing dull or muted about its superb quantity of flowers, scores of which open about 3ft high above upright green leaves. I began with one plant 12 years ago and have split it and distributed chunks of it since, as dotted plants around the garden. In each new place it flowers stupendously.
Next in line comes a fine yellow, paler than Paul’s, the well-named Norwich Canary. It is not quite so tall but is equally floriferous, even in slight shade. It coincides in later August with pink-orange Severn Sunrise, the one I mix with dark blue agapanthus. Together, this combo has seen me happily into September. Thoughtful choosing will give you crocosmias for six summery weeks.
Crocosmias have had a tremendous summer because they like excellent drainage and plenty of water during the growing season. I dig sharp grit around them when planting and hope for a wet early summer, like this year’s, to do the rest. It has, and they have flourished without hot sun to send them over too quickly. Despite their origin in South Africa, they do not need to be in the blazing sun all summer. They have often been misunderstood.
Cool cloudy days and fewer bouts of dry weather also suit phloxes. They are best in Scotland but this year I am content with mine. Here too I have had a succession, beginning with Blue Paradise and the excellent smaller varieties recently marketed as the Flame series. These Flame phloxes are lower growing, only about 1.5ft tall, and more resistant to powdery mildew. None is a true deep blue yet but Flame Purple is heading for it. Flame Light Blue is more white than sky blue, but good nonetheless, especially away from full sun. All these recent arrivals are worth hunting for, even if you have several phloxes already.
The main phase of my phlox season concludes now with the tall and vigorous white-flowered David, an essential mainstay. It then has a coda when the earlier ones, especially the Flames, have a second flowering after prompt deadheading. Be sure to do it, down to the next pair of leaves on each stem.
This summer’s conditions have greatly favoured hydrangeas. I have never seen them flowering so well. I prefer the lacecap ones, Preziosa and Lanarth White to the fore, but the rounded mophead ones have been so generous that they deserve praise too. Veteran FT readers may like to be reminded that whenever I met my former colleague, the great Arthur Hellyer, in the old Bracken House in the 1970s, now once again the FT’s headquarters, he championed macrophylla Generale Vicomtesse de Vibraye. It is a fine mophead indeed, which is still available in the trade, varying from blue to pink according to the alkalinity of the soil.
Even he never discussed a discovery from Japan, paniculata Kyushu, now rightly back in favour with sources online. It has dark green leaves and cone-shaped spikes of airy white flowers to a height of about 6ft. This year, it looks magnificent. Hydrangeas continue to be crossed and improved and most of the newer arrivals deserve space.
An August bouquet, then, to Mother Nature, smiling on Britain. Can she keep up this localised kindness? I doubt it, but I revel in it.
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