Going to sedum

AS EARLY summer flowers fade and later season plants begin to take their place, there can be lull in late July and early August as the garden begins to adjust to the change.

Our garden is at its best in spring when it is filled to bursting with a succession of bulbs, early perennials and numerous flowering shrubs. I take no credit for this as most of the planting was in place when we took over the garden, although I have filled in a few patches with favourite plants.

It is at this time of year I can begin to make my own mark in our garden. Although it is once again lush with greenery brought on by recent rain, there is a lack of colour.

A start has been made with dahlias that fill an area with deep colours, but it is a couple of quite small plants that have made the best change so far.

The sedum family is large and ranges from the small, ground-covering specimens often found in rockeries and containers to the fleshy ice plants that attract butterflies, bees and hoverflies in late summer.

These latter plants are a subject for another column, they are beginning to clump out in our garden but have yet to bloom. It is their smaller relatives that have looked so good so far this year.

I like dark-leafed foliage and the two that have been added to the garden so far reflect this taste. The first has reddish foliage and deep pink flowers.

It is planted in a small bed in the patio gravel, where it breaks up the space and has begun to spread over the area in a small way. The colour of the flowers and leaves contrasts beautifully with the surrounding tweedy stones.

This sedum is planted with a mossy saxifrage which flowers much earlier. These two small, relatively insignificant plants between them bloom from April to the end of July, but give a much longer season of interest with the massed flower-buds of the saxifrage appearing in March and the deep wine-coloured seed heads of the sedum looking good well into September.

The sedum above has lost it label and remains nameless, but a relative in a raised rockery area has somehow managed to hang on to its label. This is Sedum ‘Bertram Anderson’ with smoky purple foliage and clusters of beautiful rich pink flowers in August and September.

The long-spreading red stems lay on the surface of the soil and carry plump leaves that are pale to begin with and darken as they mature.

Even without the flowers, this is an attractive plant to grow in a sunny spot. It needs well drained soil so is suited to an alpine bed and is very tough as long as its roots are kept free from cold, wet, winter earth.

The flower-buds begin to appear at the beginning of the summer and stay tantilisingly closed for weeks. As August arrives they begin to open and soon the plant is covered in starry pink blossom that attracts nectar seeking insects.

Like most sedums, ‘Bertram Anderson’ is easy to grow; the only problem can be that in a wet summer slugs and snails can strip the stems of leaves in a couple of days. It likes full sun and a decent space in which to spread.

I grow mine among rocks and gravel in a raised alpine bed next to variegated thyme. The contrast of the tiny pale fragrant leaves of the herb and the chubby dark foliage of the sedum is satisfying and although the two are making a takeover bid for the rest of the bed, they can be forgiven at this moment in time.

Weekend catch-up...

IT LOOKS like there will be a bumper fruit harvest this year as branches are laden with ripening produce. If there is a Victoria plum tree in the garden, it is worth thinning out the fruit that weighs down the rather brittle stems of this plum tree.

It seems a shame to pick off any fruit but in a good year Victorias will carry so much that the branches can break off. Just take out the smallest ones and any that have begun to rot to relieve the burden and allow the remaining ones plenty of space to fatten up.

Open gardens

Sunday

In aid of the National Gardens Scheme

Havoc Hall, York Road, Oswaldkirk, YO62 5XY, 21 miles north of York on the B1363. This garden was begun in 2009 and is divided into eight areas. These include knot, herbaceous, mixed shrub and flower gardens, a vegetable area and orchard, lawns with hornbeams and hedges and a two-acre wild flower meadow with a pond. Open noon-5.30pm, admission £4.

Gardening TV and radio

Sunday

8am, BBC Radio Humberside, The Great Outdoors. With Blair Jacobs and Doug Stewart.

8am, BBC2, Around the World in 80 Gardens. Monty Don visits India.

9am, BBC Radio York, Julia Lewis. Julia looks at North Yorkshire gardens.

9am, BBC Radio Leeds, Tim Crowther and Joe Maiden.

9am, BBC2, Gardeners World. Summer gardening.

9.30am, BBC2, The Beechgrove Garden. A look at how the annual planting schemes have fared in the garden this year.

2pm, BBC R4, Gardeners’ Question Time. The team are in Essex where Matthew Biggs, Bob Flowerdew, Anne Swithinbank and chairman Eric Robson advise gardeners from Upminster.

Tuesday

8pm, ITV, Love Your Garden. In the last programme of this series Alan Titchmarsh is in Cumbria to help with a garden that became neglected when the owner’s daughter became ill with Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Friday

3pm, BBC R4, Gardeners’ Question Time. Panellists Bob Flowerdew, Pippa Greenwood and Matthew Wilson join chairman Eric Robson in Antrim.

8.30pm, BBC2, Gardeners’ World. Monty Don propagates plants for next year’s garden and Carol Klein looks at the daylily.