Well it has been a fantastic summer an excellent growing year and a year where we have been able to get stuck in to all manner of tasks in the garden. Now it is raining the leaves are turning colour and the days are rapidly shortening; with the shorter days a flurry of short day length flowers provide us with the last hoorah of colourful display. Many of the hardy perennials that we have in the Broad Walk are gloriously doing their thing right now. Taking a closer look it is interesting to note that the Compositae (The Daisy Family) are in ascendance, so good displays of Aster, Rudbeckia, Solidago and Chrysanthemum are particularly noteworthy.
Even in the rain I have enjoyed a walk around noting how much colour we still have. Of course a huge benefit of many of these late flowerers is that they are fantastic for cut-flower. No need for a global market and cut flowers from foreign parts when we can do this at home. Our gardening forefathers knew a thing or two and even in a modest garden one can provide the house with much floral cheer. Come to think of it why aren’t more of us growing flowers for cutting? Can I put in a gentle plea for this and is not there a huge potential for a Welsh revival of cut-flower growing?
I am sure in the grand days of Middleton Hall not only would there have been fruit and vegetables there would have been a cutting garden providing the great house with armfuls of flowers for decoration. For those who say to me if you can’t eat it why grow it (and they are many), quite simply there is money in cut-flower and home grown has to be the sustainable way to go. What do I know? I just love the pleasure of growing flowers!
Simon Goodenough
3rd October 2013