Most ornamental grasses will stay intact through the latter part of the year, providing useful colour and structure in the autumn, when herbaceous plants are dying back. Some are particularly vibrant, picking up on the colours of the trees to echo their shades of russet and yellow, but with lower, softer silhouettes and lots of movement. Using them is easy. Weave them into a herbaceous border, or create more impact in larger gardens by repeat planting, as Piet Oudolf did at Scampston Hall in North Yorkshire, with his sinuous banks of Molinia caerulea subsp. caerulea 'Poul Petersen'. Some grasses are deciduous while others are evergreen. It is the deciduous grasses that can dramatically change colour during the autumn.
Of the deciduous grasses, the panicums are always good value in autumn. P. virgatum 'Shenandoah' (1.2 metres) has red-tipped leaves that turn a spectacular deep burgundy, while 'Northwind' (1.5 metres) has blue-grey foliage that turns yellowy orange. Most cultivars of Miscanthus sinensis look good in autumn, with their distinctive plumes fading to silvery white as the season goes on, but possibly the best for autumn colour is 'Ferner Osten', with sprays of leaves that turn bright coppery red underneath buff brown plumes. The molinias or purple moor grasses are excellent in autumn, their leaves turning butter-yellow. 'Poul Petersen' forms strong clumps of upright stems up to 90cm, while 'Heidebraut' is slightly taller at 1.2 metres. A grass I am longing to try is the evergreen Chionochloa rubra (1 metre) from New Zealand, which produces distinctive, rounded clumps of delicate copper-brown foliage.
Panicum and miscanthus are warm-climate grasses that will thrive in full sun in a reasonably moist and fertile
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Heaths and heathers are easy to grow if you give them the right conditions. They only loathe clay soil and summer humidity (although you can find exceptions), and you can’t do much about those. Other than that, you can provide the conditions or find the species or cultivar that suits your spot. The best source for in-depth information is Gardening with Hardy Heathers by David Small and Ella May T. Wulff.
The colours of autumn are so evocative. Russet, ochre and translucent crimson can look magnificent against a clear blue sky – or more importantly they can light up a dull grey day, catching the eye and cheering the heart. It is fascinating to know a little about the science behind the colour change in the second half of the year, as explained by Chris Clennett at Kew: ‘Trees, like most plants, use chlorophyll to photosynthesise…In autumn, trees that lose their leaves for winter go through a process to shut down photosynthesis and reclaim as many valuable chemicals as possible. Chlorophyll is constantly breaking down and being replaced through the summer, but the process slows down in autumn. This reveals all those other chemicals that were hidden by the presence of the dominant green chlorophyll…yellow flavonols, orange carotenoids and red to purple anthocyanins.’
The Isles of Scilly are like an idealised version of England – where the sun always shines, the food is wonderful, there’s no traffic and no one locks their doors! To say the sun always shines is an exaggeration, but they’re among the sunniest and mildest places in the UK – sea breezes mean it’s never too hot or humid and thanks to the Jetstream, they almost never have frost.
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Mushrooms in the garden can be an unsettling sight, indicating changes in the soil and in growing conditions generally. While growing mushrooms is becoming more popular as a home interest, fungi can be unpleasant in gardens when they arrive out of nowhere. These unplanned garden guests can also be toxic, so you’ll want to remove them if you have curious children or pets.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that the recent epiphany in gardens and mental health is a new discovery, but gardens have long been linked to good health and quiet reflection. In fact, the late 20th-century rift in our relationship with the natural world can be seen as a historical blip in an otherwise unbroken bond between man and nature. The well-documented surge in interest in the natural world during Covid was in fact a restoration of a healthier relationship that we as a society had been enjoying for centuries.
The Piet Oudolf field at Hauser & Wirth in Somerset is the much-photographed and universally adored example of a style of planting that has been gathering momentum since the Victorian era. In defiance of an increasingly industrialised landscape, garden-making has steadily become more conscious of the vitality and importance of wilder and naturalistic landscapes as they disappear in an ever-more urban world. But it was Piet Oudolf who has transformed this yearning for the wild into a widely recognised style, one which has arguably been the defining characteristic of contemporary garden design over the last 20 years.
Mahonias are woody evergreen shrubs and the best of them flower in winter. In the past, they were regarded as something to shove in the shady corner or, even more insultingly, as car park plants. But now – thanks to the demand for architectural foliage – they are having their moment in the sun... or, rather, their moment in light shade, which is where they prefer to be.