Our Small Space Garden Late Season Tour: Blissfully Lovely Flowers Carry August into Autumn

The patio is a woven tapestry of colour and here and there it gets unpicked and restitched by moving patio pots around to showcase our favourites as they come into flower or recombine colour combinations. As taller flowers like cosmos grow high, smaller plants are raised onto upturned pots so that all can bathe in the last of the summer sun rays and continue to entice pollinators large and small. As we welcome you one and all to our late summer small space garden tour, the lavender rondeau in the lawn has already been trimmed back into tidy mounts. Ripe apples hang heavy in the tree, enjoyed by the birds as much as us, and poppy seed is being collected with some left to distribute in the wind and some to feed the finches. Here are the treasured August gems that help us keep the summer vibe alive as we slide into autumn. This hardy perennial long flowering aster with its charming slender lilac blue rays around a central golden eye proves beguiling to butterflies. Our plant has been constrained in a long tom style pot for over 10 years and every spring I intend to divide it, but the self-seeded poppy it now shares the pot with always comes into flower in spring and looks too good to disturb. There are varieties better suited to life in a pot inasmuch as they won't need support and we've put a link to those below. Ours is gently kept in check with cut honeysuckle stems secured with canes. The stems quite naturally braided themselves into this woven structure before they were harvested. Could vines have been the way nature taught our distant ancestors to weave? Covered in buds and only just getting started after an exceptionally wet spell of midsummer weather, its petal colour is one of those glow at dusk ultraviolet blues that just melt the heart and soothe the mind. Buddleia summer beauty, another late season hardy perennial irresistible to pollinators, is planted in a sunny border at the edge of the patio where we can sit and appreciate its butterfly visitors who sometimes give the impression that we are the creatures of interest to them. This is a relatively compact buddleia variety. We still need to prune off some of the branches every year so that the view of the birdbath isn't too obscured. Now established it seems very low maintenance. I do deadhead the brown panicles when they go over but it doesn't need feeding or watering. We cut it back to one to two feet in height in late autumn which is earlier than advised but never seems to the plant's detriment as it's always laden with flowers the following year which are pleasingly fragrant. In contrast to summer beauty at the bottom of the garden there's a self-seeded buddleia plant which provides a rich nectar and pollen supply for insects including nocturnal moths in a towering 20 feet high feeding station. I am definitely guilty of overusing the phrase dreamy blue and heavenly blue and divine blue and yet I can't help but apply all the above to the flower color of evergreen agapanthus lavender haze, a loose globe of celestial blue trumpets that seem to float above other flowers. Our plants did suffer this winter unfortunately I was rather more lax about sheltering them than in previous years and lo and behold we suffered the lowest temperatures here for decades. The foliage looked very sorry for itself by spring and the number of flower heads have been fewer this summer so lesson learned for the coming cold season and as a consequence the flowers that have emerged are all the more appreciated. On our patio we grow two red windsor apple trees in containers. We originally purchased them to plant either side of our front door. I had this fantasy of us returning home after work or our daughter coming back from school and being able to just reach out and pluck a refreshing red apple on the way in through the door. However I had to concede that there was really not enough sun at the front of the house for productive fruiting so we bought two half-priced plastic water butts from a supermarket, converted them for the trees with drainage holes two inches above the base, a layer of sand at the bottom to retain moisture and a coat of stone colored paint to smarten the pots. Succulents planted around the base add year-round interest to the container without overly competing with the apple trees for water or nutrients. The idea is that the Sempervivums echo the ripening colors of the apples as the summer progresses. With the classic English apple variety Cox's Orange Pippin in the heritage of Red Windsor these are delicious dessert apples and the birds are partial to them for breakfast. As you can see the fruit is slightly sharp yet sweet and satisfyingly aromatic. Earlier this month to train over the arch at the end of the garden we planted Mary Delaney, a charming climbing rose from David Austin with soft pink petals and a gentle old rose fragrance. We've improved the soil with organic matter as the clay here at the bottom of the slope can get somewhat waterlogged in a wet winter but if the planting proves a success then we will introduce a rose on the other side too. I've realized the petals are being nibbled by cheeky little spittle bugs but I'm hopeful the sparrows will perform their natural pest control and our helpful frogs also climb amongst plants to catch insects. Get busy please guys! Mary Delaney the namesake of the rose was an English artist born in 1700 who invented a form of paper cutting or decoupage which she described as her paper mosaics creating intricate botanical illustrations. The rose isn't the only new flower at the bottom of the garden in an unexpected development our bamboo began flowering for the first time in over 20 years and has now gone to seed. Due to the bamboo's mysterious life cycle this sadly probably means we will lose this old anemone September charm is an easy to grow perennial with a delightful informal yet delicate beauty providing an excellent pollen and nectar source for beneficial insects. In our clay soil it does not spread easily but in lighter soils it would potentially need keeping in check. Bumblebees can barely wait for the buds to open. We also grow this gorgeous plant in our tiny front garden and trim back the stems by the path in early summer to create tiered flowering heights later in the season. In the full sun of the patio border September charm grows to almost six feet high gently dancing in the breeze. We generally don't stake or support our Japanese anemones because we love the sense of flowers artfully spilling into or over one another creating gorgeous color combinations. As we bid summer a fond farewell in the garden I remain rather besotted with star performer our new agapanthus blackjack. It's such a rich sumptuous color. Flowering beneath blackjack another beloved plant of ours and another brilliant bee pleaser. Nemesia blue denim has been blooming since late spring and could have been trimmed in midsummer to extend its season but I just couldn't bear to temporarily lose the blue petals so it's looking leggy but lovely nonetheless. Salvia rocking blue suede shoes sits on an upturned pot to raise it up to meet its taller cousin salvia armistead. Both are excellent in containers but thirsty. Armistead is often listed amongst the top drought tolerant plants to choose but when grown in a container it will need regular watering or it flops about alarmingly. It has loved the wet spells in our English summer To everyone who watches our videos, engages with and subscribes to Apple Pea Fern Sea, thank you so much for your support and we hope you will join us here again soon. Until next time we wish you all flowerful times and nature-soothed from our small space garden this August.