Our hillside position comes with the weather and, perched as we are above the shelter of the woods below us, the wind is free to whistle. Our usual breeze, which brings most of the rain from the south-west, comes down the valley, whilst the chill winds that so often hit when the garden is coming to life, pushup the valley from the east. Unseen until you give it something to move through, the wind is something I set out to harness in the planting. The slopes behind us are allowed to run to meadow in the summer and the landform that we made to hold the buildings and the kitchen garden is also seeded to meadow. Look up the valley from the house and you can often see a breeze before it arrives, rippling towards us and making the wind visible.
The inclusion of ornamental grasses brings the meadows and their movement into the garden and it was important when trialling the grasses that they felt in tune and part of this setting. The deschampsia, molinia and panicum all had the modesty and grace I was looking for, but it was hard to have a grasses trial without including miscanthus. Silvergrass, clumping by nature and forming a distinctive mound of foliage before showy autumnal plumage, are not grasses that you use as a backdrop or a gauzy support. They are the stars when they are out and demand your attention.
The grass trial in 2016 with the miscanthus to the right
When I first started gardening miscanthus were perhaps more fashionable and the domain of designers such as John Brookes and Oehme and Van Sweden. My first encounter as a teenager was with Miscanthus sinensis ‘Silberfeder’ and at home I teamed it with Rudbeckia laciniata ‘Herbstsonne’. Together they soared to two and a half metres to fill our kitchen windows with artificial sunlight. The golden flowered black-eyed-Susan and silver feathers of the miscanthus provided for a full three months of autumn. I have played with miscanthus fairly consistently since then, slowly working my way through a plethora of species and cultivars. In the early years Miscanthus sacchariflorus was a favourite for its three metre stands of rustling sugar-cane foliage and then M. sinensis ‘Zebrinus’ for its distinctive horizontal stripes of bright lime green. These plants were selected for their structural presence, but we are spoiled today with a wealth of forms selected for their silky flower.
When I had enough space of my own in our old Peckham garden I toyed with several different varieties over the fourteen years we were there. Getting to know a plant for three or four years and then moving on to try a new variety kept the garden moving and my knowledge and appetite replenished. Miscanthus nepalensis was perhaps the most exotic, a relatively tender species with pendant, burnished plumage like a golden fleece. Though beautiful it proved to be less reliable than others. This was possibly due to the fact that I tried to insert them when the planting was well-established, casting too much shade and competition. One of the great positives about miscanthus are that they are reliably clump forming and long-lived too, if you give them the room and the light they need to perform.
The best of those that I have experienced for myself combine a good balance of foliage and an ability to stand well once they come into flower. The lofty ‘Silberfeder’, for instance, leans as the flowers develop. Varieties such as ‘Yakushima Dwarf’ and ‘Kleine Silberspinne’ have been specifically selected not to take space, their fountain of foliage being neat and their flowers losing none of their grace for being upright and self-supporting. A good plant is one that you can leave more-or-less alone from the point it is taken back to base in February. It will pull away with a fresh mound of strappy leaf and then need no corralling as it comes into flower.
Miscanthus sinensis ‘Dronning Ingrid’ with Persicaria amplexicaulis ‘Blackfield’, Aster umbellatus and Sanguisorba ‘Stand-up Comedian’ in September
The same combination in late October
And again in late November
Whether they are tall or short, miscanthus always have a presence and it is no surprise that in Japan, where you will see their silvery plumage animating roadsides, they are celebrated as the harbinger of autumn. This is their real season and, though I always enjoy the reliable companionship of their foliage in summer, the moment their flowering stalks begin to rise, you know that the next season is in the air.
The flower colour of the named forms varies enormously, the silver plumage of the wild M. sinensis being the colour you see most often. Those selected for the pink in the flower, such as ‘Flamingo’, are undeniably beautiful, but they set a very particular tone, which is rather unnatural. My favourites are the darkest with thunderous reds and browns in the emerging flower. ‘Ferne Osten’ is one of the first to appear in August with dark red flowers, but this earliness brings the autumn feeling into the garden too soon, as the flowers ripen and pale in September. I am happy to see the flower spikes breaking free of the mounding foliage in August, but over the years I have come to prefer pushing autumn the other way and to only now be feeling that we have seen the last of it and that winter is upon us.
Of the five or six miscanthus I trialled for the garden here, I had to be strict. In fact I almost discounted them altogether as being too showy for this rural location. The ornamental mood of the Silvergrass requires them to be close to the buildings or where the garden can afford to feel less connected to the meadows beyond us. I kept two, the first to come to flower being ‘Dronning Ingrid’. This is a delightful plant (main image), good for being modestly sized both in the scale of the leaf and the mound it creates as it gathers in strength during the summer. The flowers started to push up in August here, showing their dark, wiry filaments by the end of the month, their upright form retaining space between the plumage. I like this very much because the flowers act as weather vanes, describing the wind in each of their outlines. The deep mahogany in the flower is set against pale Aster umbellatus and the redness picked up in an undercurrent of Persicaria amplexicaulis ‘Blackfield’. They retain a sleek darkness for the best part of six weeks, before the foliage reddens and the flower ripens and pales as it becomes more feathery.
Miscanthus ‘Krater’ holds the bottom of the steps that lead down to the studio
Miscanthus s. ‘Krater’ in early October
Miscanthus s. ‘Krater’ with the dark seedheads of Astilbe rivularis in November
Miscanthus s. ‘Krater’ in early December
‘Krater’ is the bigger of the two, but still compact and orderly. It is planted here to hold the corner at the bottom of the steps down to the studio where the foliage mounds to waist height before pushing up flowers in September. The original clump was quartered two years ago (in March, the time to split grasses) and I do not expect to have to divide them again for seven or eight years. They take the full brunt of sunshine in this position and provide shadow for hellebores I’ve planted on their north side. This ability to use miscanthus like shrubs for structure and shade is one of their greatest assets. ‘Krater’ also starts dark and moody in flower, but the flowerheads are both a more subdued grey-brown and more open and tasselled than ‘Dronning Ingrid’. As the season progresses the foliage flares yellow and orange before bleaching to parchment for the winter. As the flowers age and the dark cloud silvers, they provide us with light catchers to arrest the low rays as they glance through the garden.
By the end of February, when we start to clear the perennials, I will have had enough and will take a serrated Turkish knife and fell them to the ground. This will mark the end of the period we are now just entering, a winter endured and mapped in a grass that I will always take time to make room for.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan Published 8 December 2018
Grasses were always going to be an important part of the garden. They make the link to the meadows and fray the boundary, so it is hard to tell where garden begins and ends. On our windy hillside, they also help in capturing this element, each one describing it in a slightly different way. The Pennisetum macrourum have been our weather-vanes since they claimed the centre of the garden in August. Moving like seaweed in a rock pool on a gentle day, they have tossed and turned when the wind has been up. The panicum, in contrast, have moved as one so that the whole garden appears to sway or shudder with the weather.
Though the pennisetum took centre stage and needed the space to rise head and shoulders above their companions, they are complemented by a matrix of grasses that run throughout the planting and help pull it together from midsummer onwards. Choosing which grasses would be right for the feeling here was an important exercise and the grass trial in the stock beds helped reveal their differences. At one end of the spectrum, and most ornamental in their feeling, were the miscanthus.
Clumping strongly and registering as definitely as a shrub in terms of volume, I knew I wanted a few for their sultry first flowers and then the silvering, late-season plumage. It soon became clear that they would need to be used judiciously, for their exotic presence was at odds with the link I wanted to make to the landscape here. At the other the end of the spectrum were the deschampsia and the melica, native grasses which we have here in the damp, open glades in the woodland. We have used selections of both and they have helped ground things, to tie down the garden plants which emerge amongst them.
Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’
Molinia arundinacea ssp. caerulea ‘Transparent’
Falling between to two ends of the shifting scale, we experimented with a range of genus to find the grasses that would provide the gauziness I wanted between the flowering perennials. As it is easy to have too many materials competing when choosing your building blocks for hard landscaping, so it is all too easy to have too many grasses together. Though subtle, each have their own function and I knew I couldn’t allow more than three to register together in any one place. Tall, arching Molinia caerulea ssp. arundinacea ‘Transparent’ that is tall enough to walk through and yet not be overwhelmed by would be the key plant at the intersection of paths. The fierce uprights of Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’, scoring thunderous verticals early in the season and then bleaching to longstanding parchment yellow, would need to be given its own place too in the milking barn yard. I needed something subtler and less defined as their complement in the main garden.
Our free-draining ground and sunny, open position has proved to be perfect for cultivars of Panicum virgatum or the Switch Grass of American grass prairies. We tried several and soon found that, as late season grasses, they need room around their crowns early in the season if they are not to be overwhelmed. Late to come to life, often just showing green when the deschampsia are already flushed and shimmering with new growth, it is easy to overlook their importance from midsummer onwards. I knew from growing them before that they like to be kept lean and are prone to being less self-supporting if grown too ‘soft’ or without enough light, but here they have proven to be perfect. Bolting from reliably clump-forming rosettes, each plant will stay in its place and can be relied upon to ascend into its own space before filling out with a clouding inflorescence.
Panicum virgatum ‘Cloud Nine’. The original stock plant is in the centre.
Panicum virgatum ‘Cloud Nine’
I tried several and, with the luxury of having the space to do so, some proved better than others. The largest and most dramatic is surely ‘Cloud Nine’. My eldest plant, the original, remains in the position of the old stock bed and the garden and younger companions were planted to ground it. This was, in part, due to it already being in the right place, for I needed a strong presence here where I’d decided not to have shrubs and they have helped with their height to frame the grass path that runs between them and the hedge along the lane. By the time the stock beds were dismantled we were pleased not to have to move it, because the clump is now hefty, and a two man job to lift and move it.
I first saw this selection in Piet Oudolf’s stock beds several years ago, where it stood head and shoulders above his lofty frame. Scaled up in all its parts from most other selections, the silvery-grey leaf blades are wider than most panicum and very definite in their presence. Standing at chest height in August before showing any sign of flower, it is the strongest of the tribe. Now, in early autumn, its pale panicles of flower have filled it out further, broadening the earlier bolt of foliage. If it was a firework in a firework display of panicum, it would surely be the last, the scene-stealer that has you gasping audibly. I like it too for the way it pales as it dies and it stands reliably through winter to arrest low light and make a skeletal garden flare that is paler in dry weather and cinnamon when wet.
Panicum virgatum ‘Rehbraun’
I have three other panicum in the garden, which are entirely different in their scale and presence. Though it has proven to be larger than anticipated in our hearty ground and will need moving about in the spring to get the planting just right, I am pleased to have selected ‘Rehbraun’. Calm, green foliage rises to about a metre before starting to colour burgundy in late summer. The base of redness is then eclipsed by a mist of mahogany flower, which when planted in groups, moves as one in the breeze. I have it as a dark backdrop to creamy Ageratina altissima ‘Braunlaub’ (main image) and Sanguisorba ‘Cangshan Cranberry’, which are wonderful as pinpricks of brightness held in its suspension. It is easily 1.2 metres tall here and, weighed down by rain, it can splay, and I have found that several are too close to the path, but I like it and will find them a place deeper within the borders.
Panicum virgatum ‘Heiliger Hain’
Panicum virgatum ‘Shenandoah’
Though it has not done as well for me here – it may well be that it is a selection from a drier part of the States – ‘Heiliger Hain’ has been beautiful. Silvery and fine, the leaf tips colour red early in summer and are strongly blood red by this point in the season. It is small, no more than 80cm tall when in flower, and so I have given it room to rise above Calamintha sylvatica ‘Menthe’ and the delicate Succissella inflexa. Similar in character, though better and stronger, is ‘Shenandoah’ which I have drawn through most of the upper part of the garden. Blue-grey in appearance as it rises up in the first half of summer, it begins to colour in late August, bronze-red becoming copper-orange as it moves into autumn. Neil Lucas of Knoll Gardens says it has the best autumn colour of all panicum. It also stands well in winter to cover for neighbours that have less stamina. Where in the right place, with plenty of light and no competition at the base whilst it is awakening, it is proving to be brilliant and will be the segue from the summer garden, slowly making its presence felt above an undercurrent of asters to finally eclipse everything in a last November burn.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
Published 29 September 2018
I try hard to ensure that these posies picked from the garden are done in real time, but last weekend I flew off to the States for a week’s work. So this bunch I picked last Saturday before the frost, which till then had kept itself to the hollows down by the stream, made its way up into the garden for the first time on Sunday morning. These are the very last of the dahlias, pushing against the tide of decay, but dwindling daily with the increasing cold at night. Blackened the instant the frost arrives and heralding the coming of winter.
Usually this is the time to lift dahlias. The tender foliage is seared back to the stem. Dig down and the fleshy tubers are rude with a summer’s feeding and full of the energy they need to sustain them through the winter. The two species I have selected here have so far proven themselves to be just as happy in the ground with a little help in the form of a mulch of compost to keep them through the cold season.
Dahlia australis
Despite the elegance of its finely divided leaves and sharply drawn flowers, Dahlia australis is a plant that needs room at the root in company. Try to lift the tuber and you find that it is easily a two-man job and this is why the push of growth is strong and constant from the moment it comes through in the spring.
Standing now at shoulder height and a stretch of the arms across this is not, however, a plant that feels demanding of space. With delicate growth and single flowers on wiry stems, there is a lightness about it that tends to be lost in the hybrids. For this reason I have decided to keep it in the garden as it will sit well with the wild feel of its companions. I plan to have it amongst Verbena macdougalii ‘Lavender Spires’, which you can see here at the very end of its flowering season. The tiny violet flowers, which leave behind them a sterile taper, have been flowering for months, but now have nowhere left to go. Three or four plants spread widely in a bed provide a vertical accent and the dahlia will be good pushing its way through this floral cage.
Dahlia merckii ‘Alba’, Verbena macdougalii ‘Lavender Spires’ and Amsonia hubrichtii
Dahlia merckii ‘Alba’ is of an altogether lighter weight and more delicate disposition. Standing at no more than chest height, with delicate growth and foliage, this is a delectable dahlia. Despite its appearance, it seems to be perfectly hardy, and I would not want to be without it for its constancy of flower. These are pure white, small and widely-spaced and dance like butterflies in wind, but if the plant is not in good company it will snap and break. Teaming it with low perennials that will not overwhelm its foliage is better than staking. Far less fiddly and better for the dahlia to find its own way, since the spaciousness in the plant comes out in several directions from the crown. In the stock beds I have it with a herbaceous Salvia pratensis, but when I use it in the new garden I will team it with the Amsonia hubrichtii that you see colouring gold in this posy. They are both sun loving and, after its early flower, the amsonia will leave room for the dahlia to get away in the first half of the growing season.
The flowers of both these dahlia species die well by simply dropping their petals and, as they seem happy to continue to produce without throwing all their energy into seed, there is no need to dead head as you might their more flamboyant relatives. The singles also have the added benefit of being accessible to pollinating insects.
Bronze fennel (Foeniculum vulgare ‘Purpureum’)
Miscanthus ‘Dronning Ingrid’ and Bronze fennel (Foeniculum vulgare ‘Purpureum’)
I have included the bronze fennel in the bunch for its darkness now that it is in seed and the miscanthus for its ability to harness the light in its inflorescence. I am finding the miscanthus difficult to place in the garden because they have such a strong atmosphere which smacks too much of somewhere else to sit easily in this landscape. I have seen them growing wild in Japan, where their plumage is the emblem of the autumn season and their clumps illuminate autumnal verges. Miscanthus sinensis ‘Dronning Ingrid’ is a new variety to me with foliage that colours with flashes of red and orange at the end of the season. The flowers, which are not as dark as some but emerge with a red flush nonetheless, soon pale to silvery bronze. The flower, held free to catch the breeze, is more tapering than many miscanthus but, come the winter, it lives up to its common name of Silver Grass as it flares in the low light.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
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