September
Top tips for growing flowers; spring bulbs, lifting, clearing and splitting.
Unlike the previous summer months that blur indefinably, September is easy to recognise. It is my favourite month; I’ll gather souvenirs in a bid to capture the essence and bottle it. The first turning autumn leaves, shiny conkers more precious than jewels, bowers heavy with apples and plums, dew on dahlia flowers and a musty smell in the still warm air as the year begins to retreat.
There are many opportunities for a ‘new year’ when working outside; when there is a seed to sow in most months, the year is rich with beginnings but September feels the best of all. Not a destination, a start line or podium, even its position is gentle. With the nights drawing in, plants are producing flowers on overdrive to ensure seed and their succession. I maintain that the September garden is the most reliably fulsome. Whilst the soil is both damp and warm, seeds sown and plants planted now are given the best conditions to thrive.
Direct sow hardy annuals for early cornflowers, larkspur, snapdragons and orlaya. In fact they often thrive from the extended period of cold before germinating. There is no longer the burning pressure from earlier in the growing season where scarcity of time and energy creates undue pressure on the gardener. No, here in September there is plenty of optimism to be had. A whole winter ahead, to rest, reset, review and rejuvenate. I look around and see so much material for the compost heap to feed the soil.
Climate emergency has become climate boiling; soon a climate disaster. I am certain that like me you have felt grief for our seasons and hopeless at news stories across the world. Even our hot dry spring followed by a cool wet summer tells a story that there is little that can be relied upon.
But our gardens, they are a raft in choppy, no, stormy waters. In a world of abject daily horror, where fake news online rules, our outdoor spaces are true and safe. It is where you can practise radical hope, fertile resistance and see the real time impact of your choices and efforts.
Every act in a garden is an opportunity to do ‘good’. It really is that effective. We all have that possibility too. Imagine growing naturally, without any chemicals, rejecting peat extraction by making our own composts, saving seed, lifting and splitting plants, sharing those bounties. Growing native shrubs and trees that thrive and support so many birds, insects and butterflies, lichens and mosses. All that interweave to support us, absorb carbon and create soil.
If you have your own space, this month, plant out biennials - foxgloves, honesty and wallflowers, plant narcissus bulbs for spring pollinators and heady scented cut flowers. Viola Heartsease sown now will flower across the winter with their cheery little faces even in the coldest spells. Sow broad beans, winter radish and rocket in gaps between planting or cleared crops. Prune back fruit bushes and trees straight after harvesting. Cut your flowers as often as possible and collect seed for next years.
September reminds us to reject perfection in our gardens and hedgerows. They are all perfect when grown naturally. We can cultivate hope ourselves. It is a mediation on our lives, our relationship to the local, community and action. Ours might be small but an essential contribution. Imagine if we all did this, how our futures might look.
If you don’t have a garden, find your local community space - try Cambridge Co Farm, Dig It in Saffron Walden and St Ives Community Orchard or Flourish Farm near Linton, all places where you can enjoy soil on your hands and much more than you will know.
I loved this from James Clear this week,
An ancient Greek saying reminds us of the power of personal responsibility:
"If your doorstep is clean, then your city will be clean."
Source: unknown
When the news and world seems so overwhelming, like someone said to me, “climate change is almost too big a problem to know what I can do”. I find comfort in doing my bit in my home and patch. I know pushing my hands into the soil is good for me and harvests on my plate are nutritionally dense.
After the yang of clearing crops, I’ll be reading this book for yin hammock time. Connecting through community, face to face is more important than ever. Step away from the screen! (Oh the sweet irony)
SEPTEMBER FLOWER GROWING TASKS
I am witnessing a decadence of decay in the gardens. Heavy rains and heavy dew are leaving plant stems laying across each other like the last of the ravers at first light the morning after. There is still weeks of growing and opportunity so I’m chopping back heavy, long branches and spent flowers to invite further flowers or at least their neighbours a fighting chance of light and air.
Sow Perennials & Hardy Annuals
Direct sow or into pots if the ground isn’t ready. This weekend I am sowing early cornflowers, larkspur and snapdragons. If you can only sow one, then I’d go orlaya. It’s only successful for me from an autumn sowing and I had huge plants in late April (it looks great in vases on it’s own or with ranunculus, tulips and biennials). I’ll also scatter corncockle about, the most elegant field side beauty and I’m sowing poppies under cover. Last winter we lost the vast majority of seedlings. It didn’t matter, I had another sow in the spring but a long warm autumn again might mean seeds sown now will be large enough to plant out in a couple of months time (where they’ll fair far better than undercover in a cold winter). They’ll love being in the soil over the winter. (A good how-to and a ‘seed sowing cheat’ here.)
Clearing spent plants
Whilst some are going great guns (some late planted dahlias are only just flowering and chrysanthemums are budding up), others are tired and going to seed fast. Whilst the soil is damp, it is quick to clear the plants. Just pull them, it’s fine to leave roots. Then a quick rake; if I don’t have plants to follow on, I am sowing green manures to hold their spot over the winter. (I’ve lifted the paywall on this piece about why they make everything better, sow as soon as possible!).
Planting biennials
I didn’t get around to moving self sown foxgloves last month, I’ll try and do it as soon as possible. I also didn’t manage to sow many biennials this year but there are plenty in the gardens to lift and move about - honesty, sweet william, sweet rocket and wallflowers. Not the most exciting plants for cut flowers but they are the ultimate glow up making everything else look better in the spring! They are also very beautiful when cut generously and arranged simply on their own. Read more about them here - you can still order seedlings to plant out and make sure you sow them next year!
Lift and split spring flowering perennials
I maintain that perennials is where it is at for cut flower gardens. Rather than specific patches of annuals, large perennials groupings or drifts through borders are the lowest maintenance (and therefore more sustainable) and cutting will encourage more flowers on the plant. They flower every year too! Annnnnd after a few years (longer if you cut plants hard) they will want splitting. You’ll find that some plants are vigorous on your soil. Spring flowering perennials to consider might be hellebores, heuchera and epimedium. I’ll lift them with a fork, split but with pulling apart the platelets or driving a spade through the middle of the clump. Then replant giving a little more space, straightaway. Make sure the soil is damp and watch out for slugs and snails which will take advantage now - plant some jars of beer around the new plantings.
Summer flowering varieties can be split later this month and much later into autumn. Irises are best split now. I have a big bed of them that are surrounded by ground elder. I am going to move them into our field plot (sounds bigger than it is but it is a small patch surrounded by an electric fence that I often forget to turn on - 96 linear metres of 1m wide beds). They are deer and rabbit resistant, and it is a very sunny open position so I think they will do even better out here. Lift Iris, pull corms apart and chop down the foliage to a few inches. Replant with their corms high above the soil so the sun can heat them with just the underside and bottoms in the soil. They’ll root down in the next few weeks and settle overwinter.
Narcissus
If you haven’t ordered yours, do it today! And these can be planted now onwards. The sooner the better so they have a long period growing and rooting. I’m lifting and moving lots of our bulbs since they have got congested and reduced flowering. They need much more space than I gave them. These are going into the field plot too this month. Find out how to order the best ones and have flowers from February to May here.
My annual, year long, ‘Grow Your Own Cut Flowers’ Course starts in a fortnight! Want to know more? Have a look here. It’s the best thing I’ve created and keeps getting better and better.
Harvesting
Shrubs - Physocarpus, berry foliage, branches of apples and plums.
Perennials - Persicaria, rudbeckia, aster, gaura, salvias, thalictrum, mints, eupatorium.
Annuals - Some are slowing down or already post best, others just keep going! Zinnia, sunflowers and rudbeckia sahara’s, nicotiana, achillea, cosmos, snap dragons, scabious, cornflowers, silene, coreopsis, calendula, nasturtiums, cerenthe, dianthus. Keep cutting and dead heading to prolong flowering. Atriplex has turned to seed (the perfect time to cut for arranging), panicum bursting with its fibre optic spurs and nicandra are about to flower before developing to black lanterns. And of course, Dahlias. Armfulls of Dahlias.
For more on all of these tasks this month, growing cut flowers, growing thoughts and anything else I am thinking about, upgrade for weekly emails. Every Tuesday direct into your inbox. Each month there is a floral recipe with combinations and methods for growing, cutting and conditioning for you gather the same. With a rich library of support and resource which you’ll have full access to with a 14 day free trial.
If you live more locally to Saffron Walden, Cambridge or Essex, join me on my ‘Something for the Weekend’ newsletters on Saturdays with in person courses and classes, 1.2.1’s, ‘Do it yourself’ buckets and collect your wedding flowers.
Really enjoyed reading todays notes and was inspired so much so that I subscribed!