Wonderful flowers for late summer

patrickwiltshire3
Oct 8, 2023
2 min read

Saucer-size yellow sunflower in full bloom — Sunflowers add cheery colour in late summer and autumn

Late summer and autumn are when some flowers come into their own in our gardens, especially here in East Yorkshire. They’ve waited patiently for a whole growing season allowing other flowers to come before them. First the spring bulbs, then the delphiniums and mallows. They finally get their turn from August onwards.

So late summer flowers - please take the stage.

Rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’

Yellow flowered rudbeckias - golden and sunflower like — Rudbeckias basking in the sun

This flower rewards us green-fingered gardeners with its large blooms that come up in big numbers from late summer to last well into autumn. As a plant it bulks up in our flower beds year on year so it’s worth getting hold of and planting up now in September/October or waiting to plant up in spring. The golden flowers look radiant in the sunlight unique to autumn.

Height: 60cm

Salvia ‘Amistad’

Purple flowering salvia with purple petals and black bases — Like purple gargoyles - mouths agape

This hard-working perennial puts a smile on my face as the flower stems appear from mid summer. The leaves have a lovely scent and the flowers are that bit exotic. Though hardy in some of our winters they'll be happy with a cosy horticultural fleece put over them on freezing nights. I give them a light hair-cut in the autumn after flowering and a heavier crop in late May.

Height: 100cm

Sedum spectabile

A pink flowering ice plant or sedum in full bloom — Ice plant in flower

For the continued presence of pink in the garden choose ice plants. One is Sedum spectabile which starts to open into flower from September and lasts into autumn. They’ve got succulent leaves similar in texture to aloes so take on a tropical look. I’ve found them to be popular in my customers’ gardens, with the customers themselves and with passing pollinating insects.

Height: 50cm

Rose ‘Mothers Day’

Little red roses on healthy miniature rose plants — Hard-working flowers brightening up the border

This miniature rose variety is on my short-list for plants that work their socks off producing deep red flowers for such a long time. This year they started flowering in my Mum’s garden from around June and have only just started to finish this year in earnest. Snip off the withered flowers with secateurs and see more buds take their place.

Height: 50cm

Ceratostigma plumbaginoides

Blue button-like flowers of hardy plumbago — Button-like blue flowers in summer and autumn

Easy for me to say! This small and well-behaved shrub is alive in the autumn with its show of button-like deep blue flowers. Otherwise called hardy plumbago this hardy shrub gives your garden an injection of blue now after the bluebells, camassias, agapanthus and delphiniums have done their thing. The leaves take on vivid shades of red too as the season goes on!

Height: 60cm