September in the Garden

Despite the strange summer and early autumn some of the flower beds are still worth looking at.

The dahlias in the foreground and the Japanese anemonies against the background of the purple leaves of the cotinus give structure and colour.

This is one my favourite borders, it is full of tall, architectural plants and grasses. The housewall behind is smothered in creepers like the passiflora and a winter clematis. Although the window in this wall has almost disappeared under the growth, I can't bring myself to chop it down.

The only time we can look out of this window is in winter.

There is still plenty of life left in the rose border.

From a gardening column in the paper I learned today that it is now time to stop dead-heading.

What they need now is to hunker down and prepare for the worst, and producing seed will allow them to toughen up. You never know, given the chance they may even produce some beautiful, colourful hips.

The time for planting shrubs has come. The roots need winter to stretch out into the soil and become used to their new abode, before starting growth in earnest in spring.

Here is Anne Scott-James' advice

on planting.

Circles of Soil.

All the gardeners I have talked to, professionals and amateurs, have stressed the importance of leaving a generous circle of cultivated soil round shrubs, roses or fruit trees planted in grass for at least two years after planting. One nursery will not consider replacing dead plants unless a circle at least four feet in diameter has been left

for trees and at least three feet for small shrubs.

In gardens celebrated for their roses, I always observed round every rose a good circle of

cultivated soil accessible to air, rain and

supplies of food.

The four shrubs pictured here are, from the top,

Hypericum (St. John's Wort)

Berberis

Hydrangea

Fuchsia

All photos may be enlarged.