I’ve been feeling the garden needs a bit of a shake up. This week was a staycation and it provided the opportunity to visit a few places and take in some garden inspiration. Dan Pearson Studio has planted up a public park at Handyside Gardens, Kings Cross. Plenty of grasses of course but I spotted some wild strawberries used as underplanting. I’ve made a note for the future. In Oxford I laid eyes on a beautiful blue plant that is proving hard to id. Your thoughts are most welcome. On a very hot bank holiday Monday we visited the Ulting Wick open day. I went to view the dahlias. I know they are the one of the best flowers for late summer but I’ve not mastered the art of placing them in my garden. It just doesn’t seem to be dahlia friendly. I was also in search of some orange inspiration to balance out all my magenta colours. I struck lucky.
One
Dahlia ‘Orange Cushion’. Only one available so I snapped it up and hope to be able to propagate it next year. The dahlias at Ulting Wick are very impressive, I won’t be matching them for scale of planting but I’ve made a start. I’ve come to accept dahlias and even those with bronze foliage. I can see how to use it in the mix. I have great plans for next year.
Two
Some kniphofias, divisions from the Ulting Wick stock and sold by the bag full. This bag had some new spires so I should get a few weeks at least out them.
Three
All those oranges seemed to call out for a blue and there was a handy pot of salvia pratensis. On the right is the mystery plant spotted in Oxford. I thought it was also a salvia but does anyone have any ideas?
Four
With my head full of thoughts for next year I decided that things have to move round in the garden, This anchusa azurea has been flowering away at the back of the border for a couple of years now and it is so often overlooked. I need to find a space for it show off in. I thought it was ‘Loddon Anna’ with a slightly less intense blue than ‘Loddon Royalist’ but I couldn’t find any images for ‘Loddon Anna’. Did I make it up?
Five
Many of the gardens I saw this week had good shows of hylotelephium spectabile. Which is simply known as the ice plant in this house. I’ve inherited these and have let them do their own thing which often involves collapsing through lack of water. Now I’ve seen them put together with other planting I am going to consolidate the groups I have into one display…somewhere in the garden, for next year!
Six
Staying put and doing both moving and shaking is pennisetum villosum. The very first flower spike. I need a few more to complete the picture but you get the idea. Floaty pennistetum with floaty gaura. I never thought I would have grasses in the garden either but I have been won over here too.
I soaked up ideas from gardens visited over the years but also from the many wonderful posts from fellow SOSers. Too many to name check but as always I recommend you take a look at the links on Mr P’s site. Thank you to the sixers who have inspired me. You have widened my horizons and added to my garden. There, that’s enough sucking up, I have some planting to do.
n20gardener 
Hylotelephium, which I’m still tempted to call Sedum (so much easier!) is a constant in my garden. Also, I bought three grasses during the week and am hoping for them to be drifty and ethereal not thuggish!
Love the kniphofias…too frosty in my garden.
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Good luck with the grasses. I am going to try a few more but which ones!!
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Pretty colors of dahlias and kniphofias !
Ulting Wick garden seems to be a wonderful garden. Since the time that I follow them ( Philippa and Lou) on Twitter I can admit that the garden is beautiful.
You will see one day that my anchusa flowers don’t look like yours (I don’t say more until the postman has passed…)
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It is a lovely garden – divided into rooms in around the house but also with open spaces and informal beds. There was so much to see. I will wait for your anchusa flowers – an intrigue!
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We still call hylowhatiums sedumsnin this house! That kniphofias is rather nice. Hmm….
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I was always a bit hmm on the kniphofias but they are looking pretty good at the moment ! A convert.
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Looks like you took a lot of ideas away from Ulting Wick. I moved lots of Hylotelephium from the front garden through the back borders in Spring. I’m enjoying the bursts of colour still coming through from them as other plants fade.
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I’m itching to move the ice plants and if I wait until spring I might forget, but sometimes you have to be patient!
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I had lots in completely the wrong place so they got divided quite clumsily and split around the border but they all seem to have come back. Resilient plants. I’d like to add some of the darker leaved types but been silly prices at garden centre.
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Sometimes I think everything at the garden centre is silly prices! I’m going on an annual seed growing binge next year! #goodintentions
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There’s a Campanula lactiflora ‘Loddon Anna’, which if memory serves, is pink. Could the mystery Salvia be S. ‘Indigo Spires’? The name popped into my head but I don’t know where I’ve come across it. I have a Dahlia ‘Orange Cushion’, I wonder if it’s the same as your ‘Orange Pincushion’, it certainly looks very similar. Many of my seed raised Dahlias have come from it, in some respects better than the ones from bought seed.
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Good to hear that I didn’t make up ‘Loddon Anna’, maybe mine is’ Loddon Royalist’, now I keep every label. Somewhere… You are right about the dahlia – it is ‘Orange Cushion’ . I planted it out on Sunday and realised I had given the wrong name! I noticed that Mr P has collected seeds from his dahlias too. I will have a go – nothing ventured. As always SOS pushes me to do more!
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I’ve just realised I didn’t pick up on the salvia – and of course I think you are right! Someone on twitter suggested ‘Mystic Spires’ and I think it must be one of the two. They go on my plan for next year to mix in with nicotiana. Whilst trying to hunt it down I came across salvia ‘Clotted Cream’ which has also won my heart. I’ve become a salvia addict.
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Oh wow, I was way off on the Salvia. (Nevermind what I thought it was.) Anyway, it really could be either one of those two. I am sorry to say that I only met ‘Mystic Spires’ once, and have never met ‘Indigo Spires’.
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It’s so hard to id from a photo. I now realise I should have paid more attention to the stem colour but it’s one of the two so I’m happy.
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Enjoyed this post! I’m still in the sedum group — hylotelephium is such a mouthful, but correct.Your comment about not having grasses hits home. I’ve ousted a few and only planted some on a wild hillside outside of the fenced acres. Gaura and pennisetum are gorgeous together so perhaps I’ll change my ways.
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Thank you. I’m hoping the pennisetum will get through the winter – there’s a suggestion that they are a bit sensitive. I’ve always seen grasses in large spaces so had not thought them good for my garden but SOS always puts ideas into my head so I am going to try a few more.
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great SoS….I adore Dahlias Cath@Home
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Utling Wick does sound a fantastic garden. That Dahlia is a fantastic colour if Orange.
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It looks a bit lonely on its own but I do like the colour. I have been persuaded to try out growing more from seed – that could be interesting, first I have to collect the seed!
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