Mid-August, high summer and the swing of the harvest season. The meadows have just been cut, later than is good for the best hay, but good timing for the orchids and later-flowering scabious and knapweed to seed. The silence that follows the hay cut is a stark and uncomfortable contrast to the life and rustle of tall grass standing. So we will leave the steep slopes behind the house a fortnight yet for the moths and for the wild carrot to run to seed.

The greens of August are particular to now. Dark in the hedgerow a contrast to the ripening plums. Golden mirabelle, inky damson and blue-green greengage, a reminder that the next season is already upon us. The garden has relaxed, the grasses pushing through in a countermovement to the meadows beyond losing their sway. The rush towards flower that was so much in evidence even just a month ago has also slowed. The last flowers dropped on the Digitalis ferruginea and their spires quietened of the hum of bumble bees as they run to seed. In relay the echinops reach their full and final height , the bees moving on to their perfectly spherical globes. It is heartening to look up and see them suspended in the blue of the August sky and the life that accompanies them.

The tallest of all the plants in the garden this year, taller even than the giant fennel, are the Eryngium paniculatum. Jonny Bruce gave me the seed when he returned from working at De Hessenhof Nursery in the Netherlands four years ago. It was one of several treasures that travelled with him in a tin whilst he searched for somewhere to start a nursery. As Jonny pulled the packets out each one came with an evocative description. The eryngium, for instance, ‘towers at three metres tall, teetering over a basal rosette with barbs and the appearance of a puya’.

I was more than happy to be introduced to a number of exciting newcomers and to help Jonny by growing some plants here which he could use for the next generation of seed. So I started an exciting journey by sowing without knowing quite what would unfold. The following spring, as the first cotyledons showed themselves, I began the process of getting to know the plants from their very beginnings. As the eryngium showed their second leaves over the first weeks of summer, a perfectly miniature version of the adult plant started to show itself in each rosette. Each leaf curling back like a starfish with barbs along the margins, yet soft to the touch. I had a strong sense of déja vu. I knew this plant, but couldn’t remember from where. It wasn’t until the following spring, when I was planting them in their new home, that I was speared by the now matured barbs and instantly remembered. I had grown it in our front garden in Peckham, but too close to a path and we were speared one too many times to keep it.

In 2004 I spoke at a conference in Argentina and, on one of the excursions into the landscape, saw it growing in the pampas with cortaderia and Verbena bonariensis. I was impressed and expressed my admiration. Several months after my return to the UK a packet of seed arrived, wild gathered by one of the conference organisers from where we had seen it. I had been unable to identify it at the time, growing it in the mistaken belief that it may have been a variety of E. pandanifolium.

Whilst African and Eurasian species of sea holly are deciduous, the majority of the South American species tend to be evergreen and form architectural mounds of strappy foliage. Known as chupalla in South America, Eryngium paniculatum is native to the coastal strip of Chile known as the Litoral. In Argentina it is found at altitude, making it hardy but also not drought tolerant, despite its spiny appearance.

Here in Britain it prefers plenty of sunshine and a moist, fertile, well-drained soil. I lost two of my four plants to winter wet before they had a chance to flower. Here they have taken two years to do so. The first in the comfort of a frame, the second hearting up to a single rosette a couple of feet across and impossible to weed amongst without gloves. In terms of size, they are well behaved if you compare them with E. pandanifolium, which in Uruguay colonises river banks and here took up way more room than I was able to give it by the barns.

The neat rosettes of E. paniculatum are well-behaved by comparison and, for being neater, are happier in the exposure we get here when the wind whips down the valley. With moisture in the ground after winter and once there is consistent warmth, the lush rosette throws its flower spike. This year I noticed too late that more than one had been hollowed by slugs resting in the crown, but enough were unharmed for the ascent to begin.

Onward and steadily upward, outward-facing barbed daggers appeared at intervals up the stem until finally it reached its allotted height and began to branch. Each silvery green inflorescence is not much larger than a thimble and, like its relative the carrot, they make excellent forage for high summer pollinators, attracting bees, hoverflies and beetles. Tiny white anthers further amplify the paleness of the flowering spike which, when you crane your neck and look up, teems with life. Now that we have the space not to be impaled, I plan to save more seed and plant myself a spacious little colony in which to stand and stare in wonder.

Words: Dan Pearson | Photographs: Huw Morgan

Published 17 August 2024