As we enter the hottest month of the year, many gardeners are now putting their feet up and taking it easy. Out come the deck chairs and sun creams, together with some favourite reading material.
I’ve never really got used to sitting still in a chair, especially in the garden. I always manage to see something that demands my attention, so it ends up being a slightly uneasy relaxation. However, after the frantic activity of spring and early summer, it does make a very pleasant change to actually sit in the garden and indulge in a little abstract musing.
With the longest day now behind us, many of the exotic scents and vivid colours of high summer have been and gone for another year. There is almost a wistful, melancholy air to the garden as we enter August. Many garden writers describe the late-summer garden as ‘blowsy’; characterizing gardens that look tired and spent after the thrills and spills of May and June. Whilst I understand what they mean, I consider this term inaccurate and not true of most of today’s modern gardens.
My own garden is a good example of colour and scent right now and with more to come. Lilies in pots are excellent for late summer colour and scent. You can move them around to fill in odd gaps left by earlier performers now taking time out. The lovely Lilium regale has only just finished flowering here and I’ve still got Lilium speciosum budding up nicely in the wings. Both of these are white lilies, but there are lots of other lilies in shades of red, pink or even orange if that’s your thing.
An oriental flavour is introduced this month by Japanese anemones. I prefer the white form to the pink, they tend to show up better in my woodland edge garden. I freely confess to liking white flowers a great deal, they lighten dark, shady areas and in the evening look particularly good. Another herbaceous perennial typical of the season is phlox. Mine of course are white, with that very sickly sweet smell of smoky bonfires, reminding me that autumn is not that far away.
Those of you, who have been wise enough to invest in some late-flowering clematis, will not be short of colour. The jackkmanii types provide the larger flowers, but if it’s a real show you want, then the viticellas are the group to get friendly with. I grow many clematis, most are difficult to get going, either being eaten away by slugs, or collapsing at the first sign of wilt. The early montanas and the viticellas are largely immune from wilt at least, so are a godsend in the garden. If I had to pick one out from the crowd for this time of year, it would have to be a late flowering, semi-herbaceous clematis called C. durandii. Its deep-blue flowers with yellow anthers are one of the most beautiful clematis I know. Mine grows very obligingly over a pieris and a neighbouring juniper, performing a double-act with a very loud flaming-red Tropaeolum speciosum.
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