Day 48 - Shun the streevils

I had known for a while that what I was really seeking for our rectangular beds was something with pink flowers and purple foliage, thus marrying the good points of that pink and red combination I had used way back in my second year in the job, and harmonising with the raised beds nearby. I had had Dahlia 'Fascination' recommended to me for this purpose, but had held off because in my mind's eye I was looking for something with paler pink blooms. Eventually, in the absence of anything else with a suitable stature, I decided to commit some of my plant budget in giving it a go. At first we continued with the extraordinarily dull 'Park Princess' on its own in the central scheme, and I tried out 'Fascination' in the hexagonal beds, where they could be observed in splendid isolation and evaluated for the coming years.

With an edging of Cineraria 'Silver Dust', they looked just the part. Close up they were a picture, and they died nicely, leaving few really unsightly dead brown streevils hanging. Regular dead-heading helped, of course, and kept the flowers coming in profusion from July through to the end of October, helping us to gain a reputation for having a really good late-season garden. Never mind that we shut at the end of September. I was planning for the future when I was determined we would no longer labour under the restrictions of private occupancy, and could become a truly public facility.

The centrepiece in the urn by this time was a very tender indoor plant, Eupatorium atrorubens, which we overwintered in the orchid house every winter, when it would display for us above its purple hairy foliage clusters of fluffy lilac flowers in the autumn and winter period. It was a superb foliage plant, whose only disadvantage was that it tended to become paler and the leaves would change shade, not for the better, in very hot sunlight. That wasn't a problem in this part of the garden, which was surrounded by tall Holm Oaks and Lime trees and so was in shade for part of the day. However that was another aspect that would require rethinking, as the dark foliage of the Dahlias would definitely sing out better in full sun. The same had applied to the Heliotropes to a certain extent.

And that view through to the statue was still a marvellous thing to behold.