Ornamentals in October, before the first frosts

Perhaps it’s because the first hard frost will finish off many of the flowers, that October’s beauty is so poignant. Right now the Cottage Garden is a riot of colour (if a tad too scruffy to photograph). The impact of herbaceous plants’ second flowering should not be underrated - magenta geraniums, soft pink chives, indigo Campanula persicifolia and clear blue perennial cornflower combine well with indefatigable penstemons, fuchsia and Viola cornuta, plus the late season stalwarts – pink, red and white schizostylis and azure aconitums, electric pink nerines and japanese anemones whose sophisticated blooms bely their tough nature (single white ‘Honorine Jobert’ has to be my favourite)

Foliage is beginning to turn, and the Exotic Garden lives up to its name. The purple summer leaves of a japanese acer are colouring up to crimson, and my favourite sumach, Rhus glabra ‘Laciniata’ is a fiery blaze of coral and gold. Melianthus major contrasts with glaucous blue foliage (‘major’ is spot on this year, as with all the moisture it has grown taller than me) and the hardy banana, Musa basjoo, has swiftly replaced its pale green banners that were shredded to Nepalese prayer flags by the equinoctial gales.

Enjoying the beauty of these now big players, I remind myself that the whole border, nearly ten years old, is in need of a radical rethink. Already there’s a gaping hole where Acacia dealbata used to reside. It was a favourite for years - a real good doer, with feathery evergreen foliage, a reliable covering of yellow pompoms in February and March, and a nature obliging enough to tolerate being hard pruned each April (to keep it under ten foot, foiling its ambitions to grow into a tree). How could my heartless, fickle nature turn so cruelly against its particular hue of yellow? But it did, and since it contributed nothing to the local ecosystem (I never saw a single bee visiting its flowers) - off with its head, up with its roots – hopefully the neighbouring olive tree will enjoy the extra light and air, and the too major melianthus, underplanted with tulips, can move into the gap.