There are lots os September flowering cottage garden plants but most of them are plants that don’t survive or thrive here in my London garden. The echinaceas, aster daisies, dahlias, heleniums, cannas, etc just don’t do well here.
But here in the lovely low sunshine of a London September are some plants that are looking beautiful right now, giving the garden colour, movement and interest.
An old epimedium spilling over its pot going pink in the autumn
Miscanthus “Fireworks”
Sedum starting to flower. I chopped it back in June so it won’t flop too much
Sedum is one of the typical September cottage garden plants – completely reliable and indestructible. It’s also a bee magnet and bring wildlife to the garden.
Japanese fern giving green and bronze interest in a blue pot
Hakonechloa waving in the breeze always looks good in a tall pot
Japanese anemones light up an autumn border. A common and useful September cottage garden plant.
Crocus.co.uk are good for grasses as well as other specialist grasses nurseries.
A golden form of hakonechloa shines out in the low sun
So there are my September cottage garden plants. Minimal flowers, just swaying grasses and interesting leaves.
The garden is looking lovely. Every sunny day is a bonus. Fingers crossed we get some more. I still haven’t bought any bulbs yet so more on that next time but here is a post I wrote in 2016 about buying and planting spring bulbs.
Your grasses look lovely – they really are garden linchpins as the year tails off. I see that you have your grasses in pots – do you divide them? Do you ever use them in your beds? How do you feel they work with more traditional cottage garden plants?
As an aside…my local Lidl’s has a reasonably priced wee selection of grasses at the moment.
Hello Maggie, thanks for your comment. I have the floppy grasses and the more tricky ones like the red tinged one in pots but also one big one in the border which looks lovely. then I have the upright ones in the borders, the ones which die to nothing in winter (miscanthus?). I did take out a huge one and chop it into four once but the pieces never really recovered. I’m getting more grasses these days because I rely so much on green rather than flower colour. The usual late flowerers like heleniums and asters don’t survive here – they get eaten or rot away so I don’t have much flower in autumn. Grasses do well so I’m happy with them. I don’t do lupins or delphiniums or cosmos or dahlias as they would all get eaten overnight. How is your garden doing??