People are always asking me for planting that provides
year-round colour and clients always want something interesting to look at in
there garden for as much of the year as possible. Here are some of my favourite perennials for
keeping colour in the garden well into the autumn months.
Sedum ‘Purple Emperor’
Sedums are wonderful for wildlife and give great structure
to a border, making particularly good edging plants. This one has dark pink flowers and I really
like the dark purple foliage. Give it
the ‘Chelsea Chop’ in late May to keep it from flopping open.
Helenium ‘Wyndley’
Another of my favourite perennials, it's flowers have dark centres and burnt gold petals. It will flower from early summer all the way
into October.
Echinacea purpurea
Wonderful for bees and other insects, and great for
structure standing upright on robust stems. Gorgeous dark pink with cone shaped
centres. Will flower from mid-summer well
into the autumn.
Geranium ‘Rozanne’
Deservedly the nation’s favourite geranium. This fabulous
plant will produce masses of bright blue flowers all summer and keep going all the way into October. Great for the front of the border and
cascading down walls.
Cimcifuga atropurpurea
A wonderful architectural plant with dark purple foliage and tall stems with white bottlebrush flowers that smell heavenly. It is a very late flowering plant and really prefers a bit of shade, but I've got it in a sunny herbaceous border and it's doing very well.
Verbena bonariensis
Beautiful purple flower heads stand above the rest of the
border on stiff stems. Again, fabulous for attracting bees and other
pollinating insects to the garden.
Include some grasses with these perennials for a colourful, easy
to maintain, naturalistic autumn border.
