Flowers in November 2013

November may feel like winter but with careful choice and a bit of good luck you can still have a good display of flowering hardy perennials and ornamental grasses this month.

I had a walk round the nursery earlier in the month and found the following still in flower, and I don't mean one or two bedraggled flowers!  They all had a good display of flower.

Chrysanthemum 'Purleigh White' (above), 'Mei-Kyo' and 'Julia'

Persicaria amplexicaulis - lots of different cultivars but especially 'Orangefield', 'Summerdance', Taurus 'Blotau' and 'Dikke Floskes'. Persicaria amplexicaulis 'Rubies Pink', below with Molinia seedheads..

Geranium - lots, these are probably the best; Rozanne 'Gerwat' , 'Azure Rush', 'Sanne', 'Khan', 'Dilys', 'Blushing Turtle', 'Orion', various forms of Geranium nodosum, Geranium sanguineum and Geranium x oxonianum.

Pennisetum orientale 'Robustum', 'Karley Rose' and 'Tall Tails'
(below)

Aster novae-angliae 'Bishop Colenso' and Aster frikartii 'Jungfrau' (below)

Erysimum helveticum and 'Golden Jubilee'

Serratula seoanii

Centranthus lecoqii

Nerine bowdenii 'Ostara' and  'Isabel'

Securigera varia

and

Strobilanthes rankinensis! 

The majority of these plants were naturally in flower at this time, either in their main season or in a secondary flush of flower.  Some of them will have been cut back earlier in the summer which has promoted more flower later than normal.

We often see better late autumn flower when there has been rain in late summer and early autumn as the extra moisture when the soil is still warm promotes extra effort from the plants. 

Don't forget autumn foliage colour and seedheads from perennials and ornamental grasses to add contrast!  More on seedheads in a future blog post.