A couple of great additions from my garden to this great list are: Agastache 'Blackadder', Calamintha nep subs nep, Echinacea purpurea 'Magnus' (or any other Echinacea), Echinops ritro, Eryngium bourgatii or yuccifolium, Eupatorium maculatum 'Riesenschirm', Helenium 'Moerheim Beauty', Limonium latifolium, Origanum vulgare, Perovskia atriplicifolia ‘Little Spire’
calamintha sub. - that’s calamint, correct, not catmint? That’s the one I recommend, too! I’m a relatively new gardener (and due to chronic illness I can’t tend to my gardens how I should - I’m reliant on the little biweekly help I can afford) so it’s critical for me to get not only hardy species for zone 6a Canadian summer (stretches of very wet rainy days alternating with weeks of high heat, no rain) but ones that can thrive without deadheading. And like most of us I want perennials that have a long bloom times. I initially bought a ton of catmint (along with salvia and Veronica) and I like them but they don’t fulfill my initial wish list as much as I hoped (eg they look pretty terrible in between bloom cycles and require sheering back, when they’re left sheered before rebloom they’re dry and horrible during heat waves so not nice as the edging plants where I placed them :-( Cue round 2 of gardening last summer and I decided to plant calamint instead, largely because it was cheaper than catmint tbh! And I was looking at baby’s breath as an edger and thought the calamint looked similar and sounded like it would bloom longer. OMG. My love of this plant cannot be communicated! I just wish I had discovered it before spending a small fortune on all the branded, popular catmint varieties (not to say they’re bad plants at all - they’re lovely! - it’s just that calamint is a better choice for someone like me who can’t maintain a herbaceous border as it really should be maintained). I’ve since done a new edging by extending my island garden with blue marvellete calamint (white cloud is also lovely, I have that too!) alternating with moonbeam coreopsis (also a top choice for me), lady’s mantle and crystal blue salvia (which is a better variety for me than the the other indigo one I have because the green coloured spent blooms still look great to my eye so I can leave them and not sheer back if I want). So, two, very enthusiastic and not-so-green thumbs up for calamint!!! 👏
Oh, and I love my agastache too! Can’t recall the name but it’s a gold-leaf, mid-tone blue bloom variety. Planted it in high heat of July and by end of August it was already full size! And the bees adore it. That one island garden it’s in w/ the calamint and salvia is constantly buzzing with probably 8-10 different pollinator species at any given time. I’ve seen insects I’ve never seen before in my life living their best life at my grand opening all-you-can-eat buffet!
I love Matrona Sedums. Total year round interest and I’m propogating here. The seed heads stay on through the winter here in Maine. So does the feather grass Karl Foerster. Brilliant plants. Verbena Bonareinsis also did well through our drought and goes till November but it’s not a perennial here.
These are beautiful. Here in Tennessee, we had a warm spell in which so many things bloomed, then we got a hard freeze. This sort of thing frustrates me to no end.
Some beautiful plants in there, I just wished they were more Aussie natives. In my garden, we have heavy clay with dry summers. France has mostly alkaline soils, I have a pH of 8. In this dry high pH heavy soil conditions, not all plants survive... One that I don't seem to see here is Eryngiums. They're really underused. You can sow them and they're beautiful. The dead stems and flowers last all winter, they don't need watering coz they have a strong tap root. And the blue is like echinops, but with a more interesting variety of foliage and sizes. Some are tricky to sow due to the necessary over winter sowing for some species. I use a lot of centaureas as well, many of them are perennials and very underused... Centaurea montana, orientalis etc... Geums did well too, coz they can just die off in summer, like papaver orientalis. And of course all salvias, perovskias, agastaches, monardas, etc...
I love those Sedums, Alliums and Crocosmia particularly. Are there any Cape Town nursery persons looking at this (and there should be) who stock them? You'd have another customer if you did!
I had a look online to see what might be available, but it's hard to tell from this distance. I know there are some lovely alliums in South Africa, particularly one called Tuhlbaghia, which looks like a slightly larger Allium 'Millenium'
@@TheMiddlesizedGarden I fell in love with Alliums on my first visit to UK and have always hankered after them. Tulbachia are lovely but mine tend to floppiness. The orbs of the Alliums are also more intense.
Thanks for this Alexandra I needed this great information. We’ve had the exact weather you covered. Our garden was flooded for a month and now it’s dry as 💚🇦🇺
Thank you for making this video. In my area we have wet springs and parched summers so this list is very helpful. Some of the plants I have were featured so good to know I'm on the right track. Will look for some of the others!
I adore my stonecrop (autumn joy) plants. I am not a great gardener (I try) but I can vouch for how amazing it is. The bees love it. It is not phased by any soil, light or weather (mine is in various soils including clay). They are suuuuuper easy to propagate and I've made four new vigorous plants already just from last year. They don't care about extreme cold or extreme hot. The flowers last for weeks. The colour of the foliage is incredible. I think it's one of the hardest working plants in the garden.
@@TheMiddlesizedGarden I agree too..... autumn joy, what a work horse! Here in my garden ( in France )it often plays host to praying mantis....great plant..
I thoroughly enjoyed this garden tour! I want to add more grasses, sedges, and rushes to my garden. I'm slowly replacing exotics with natives to my area (USA zone 7a) and have been looking at these: Bottlebrush Grass (Elymus hystrix) Virginia Wild Rye (Elymus virginicus) Purple Love Grass (Eragrostis spectabilis) Broomsedge (Andropogon virginicus) Pink Muhly Grass (Muhlenbergia capillaris) Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) Pennsylvania Sedge (Carex pensylvanica) I already grow Giant Plumegrass (Saccharum giganteum) in a smallish pond I have. Lovely in winter! And although not a grass, Blue-eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium angustifolium) looks "grassy" enough to be worth a mention, and it blooms a beautiful shade of sky blue. It grows quite low and I have it working as an edge, in front of medium-sized perennials.
@@TheMiddlesizedGarden Thank you. My plan for this year is "more tall grasses" and "a couple of evergreen shrubs" in one particular area that looked barren this winter.
I"m always so confused when you're in your UK garden one minute and Australia the next! It's a long way to hop over to do an interview! PS I spied some beautiful agastaches (I think), would love to hear about those and how well they tolerate the extreme weather in his garden.
Yes, it's a long way for an interview! We went for about three weeks earlier this year to visit family, and as it was summer there I was able to interview some lovely gardeners. You're right about the agastaches, I was interested in them too and the peachy one was Agastache aurantiaca, but Mike said that it wasn't wholly happy in very wet weather. The agastaches are all v good in dry, it's just the wet that they don't appreciate.
@@TheMiddlesizedGarden Did suspect the reason he didn't mention them might be because they didn't fare as well at both ends of the weather but weren't they glorious. Thanks for sharing the variety. I'm in Scotland and lost one to the wet winter last year, this year they seem to have survived touch wood! Hope you had a wonderful visit with your family.
This is fantastic Alexandra! This is exactly the kind of plants we all need and can grow - many even in northern climes - given our increasingly unpredictable weather
It's always so good to get recommendations from perennial nurseries who know by far the most about these plants. Thank you for the content and please visit more nurseries!
@@TheMiddlesizedGarden If you ever have the time / money Alexandra, visit some gardens and nurseries in The Netherlands. It's such a small country, but it has such a rich gardening culture with amazing designers like Mien Ruys, Piet Oudolf, Ton Ter Linden. De Hessenhof is a great organic nursery.
Same here in Maine. But under that snow know that things are growing. I’m out in the woods, harvesting some compost. So I’m building my soil and then putting it around plants that have emerged out from under the snow bit by bit. Going to have it all done by the time we actually get to Spring!
Good afternoon Alexander, you yourself made such a colourful splash to the introduction today! Love the warm pink jacket and grey top, you looked a real picture 😍❤The tall grasses looked so beautiful but that was also a big space. Grasses are great for fillers. That was a really lovely border each complimented the other. We are nearing the end of March, and after the Easter weekend I am sure we could start with our winter season, I hope it will introduce itself gently and that the winds will not be too harsh during June and July. A very informative chat and the coloured clumps of flowers so complimented the majority of the grasses. I am looking forward to the winter season this year, I think we need a break from gardening, it was not an easy year with so high rising costs of normal daily living costs. Sometimes you really feel like behaving like a hedgehog and roll into a ball and forget about the outside world for a few weeks. Take care, many blessings, Elize.
Good stuff. I'd add a lot of irises to that list. Beardeds and Louisiana hybrids if you can give them wet feet. Both super-to-fairly cold and heat resistant.
Interesting - yes, I think the beardeds are more fussy but I tried to weed out an Iris foetidus and put it in a bucket to throw out. I forgot about the bucket which filled with water several months ago and the Iris foetidus seems completely happy. I think I have an unexpected pond.
@@TheMiddlesizedGarden Alexandra you should get a small water tub and look up something called Medaka. If you don't know what those are I won't spoil it for you!. Anyway they've made my narrow private yard and water tubs more fun. I'm slowly collecting whatever water plants I can that will survive outdoors. Obviously I think you should also then do some videos about them, lol. I didn't know Iris foetidus could do that. Once I had an Iris foetidus that I tried to grow as a woodland plant under alders. It did OK but was clearly in need of something, now that you've said this I'll bet it was far too dry in summer here. My idea was probably to try and grow it like like the native species douglasiana, which it superficially resembles, with only moderate success. I'd certainly try foetidus again if I get a chance and try watering it fully this time. Good luck on the garden this year Alexandra, your channel is really enjoyable! 🍀
The sedum does great in my part shade garden whether it’s really wet or dry. Other sedums are great ground covers. Love the millennium allium as well. Blue star juniper is doing well in very wet boggy soil as well as dryer spots for me. Pacific Northwest zone 8b
You're in my backyard, well, I'm in Adelaide. Yes, you see a lot of sedums in hospital settings down here, I guess less maintenance. I'm not a fan of crocosmia. I used to have the orange flower but that red one are pretty. Great video.
@@TheMiddlesizedGarden It's lovely to see you in Australia - hence my backyard :) I enjoyed your videos of visiting the nurseries up north. I jot down some notes on plants I can add to my garden for survivors and slug deterrents. Ta. :)
Thanks for the video! We have warm and droughty summers in the south of Ukraine and it is really helpful. And from your UK and Australia support, Ukrainians remember gratefully.
Thanks for these great recommendations! Where I live in Ohio in the U.S., you never know if it’s going to be hot or cold, wet or dry. Interestingly, many of the perennials mentioned here are also deer-resistant - another big issue in my garden.
Are they all good for British pollinators. My gardens have British plants only. Most classes as weeds because the Victorian's went exotic mad. But British have loads of flowers that are now classes as weeds. And the pollinators love them and my tortoise can eat loads of them
Great info. You always ask the best questions. Those looked like eucalyptus trees in the background in the national park. The idea of a grass 'hedge' to serve as a screen, but not block out a view entirely is interesting, and could work very well in a lot of situations, though would probably not be best as a windbreak. I appreciate knowing what works in different parts of the world with similar climates, though as you say, actual weather is often a coin-toss.
I have my list and will use it this year. I started to pull plants last year that required either too much water or too much care. I can certainly testify to sedum autumn joy being one of the best plants around. I have divided my original 12 year old plant many times. The only thing I try to do is cut them in half by the end of June so they don’t flop over with heavy heads. I don’t always get to all of them, and it doesn’t matter, really. They are gorgeous in whatever spot they are in, flappers or not. If the rest of these suggestion are anything like my autumn joy, I am going to love them. As always, thanks. So appreciative of such good advice.
I have decided to save up and start collecting some perennials - as a new gardener I would always buy the little pack of annuals.I just bought my first perennial salvia, veronica and two echinacea which I love - so exciting - but man have we had some rain here where I live ...pretty much rained all summer long ...I hope my heat loving perennials survive all the rain - we are still getting rain now in beg Autumn, but some sunny days.
Yes, I saw a lot of what seemed to be wood chip and some other gardens in the area also did this. I think it's a good mulch, it covers the ground and helps stop weeds and very slowly decomposes to add nourishment to the soil. It would probably cut down on self-seeders (although I know that some do pop up).I think in the end it's a question of what you like to look at - I'd say it's a good alternative to gravel in these gardens.
Would you do a list of perennials that will stand on their own without staking, and then those that will stand without flopping if given a Chelsea chop ❤❤
I'm not sure. The one directly behind me is Stipa gigantea, but the one in the foreground may be a Miscanthus. You could perhaps email Antique Perennials on their contact form:antiqueperennials.com/
It's Agastache aurantiaca, and Jake Reed is right - Mike told me that it didn't like the wet (I think he must have kept it pot grown until the worst rain passed)
Your summer last year was like ours EVERY year. Didn't understand what the hubbub was about until you said they wouldn't let you water anything. 😲. We're never (knock on wood) told to not use water but it is cheaper for those of us who have irrigation. But then again, you have to understand we're the ones who LEFT England 400 years ago so if someone was to tell us to not water at all, we'd just laugh in their face or run them out of town. 😆. Just kidding. Sort of.
Ha, ha, I know what you mean. I don't think our water companies manage our water quite as well as they should because very often a 'hose pipe ban' seems to come not long after months of rain.
@@TheMiddlesizedGarden Yeah, it sounds like they're just messing with you. We had 2 years of drought and for us that's like over 100° every day for months AND with ZERO rain and there wasn't a "ban". The 3rd year it rained so much that it actually brought the water table back up to capacity (which I thought was unheard of). But then maybe in Washington state they just said that because they didn't want people to have water rights anymore. Who knows? I was online recently (not looking it up but you know how something comes up by accident that catches your attention).... Anyway, it was talking about things you could do for water bans. I only glanced at it since it's never happened here but I saw one thing where it said to put a bucket in your sink, save your bath water, etc to use on "vulnerable to drought" plants. Were you doing that last year and still lost plants? If so, I guess I'd just say, "mulch baby mulch!"
@@lesliekendall5668 with all due respect, the water situation especially in the south west US is now so dire that some states really OUGHT to have a ban, and definitely should have had restrictions last year even though you didn’t. Water is being used much, much faster than it can be replenished and it’s setting you up for disaster.
@@user-ed7et3pb4o I guess I'm spoiled from always being in a place where it's not an issue. And they could always look into accessing primary water but refuse to. Thank you for reminding me of the SW. Now that I think about it, I do remember hearing that it's bad there.
Grasses are ubiquitous in these gardening videos. In my opinion mostly they just look like you haven't mowed your lawn for weeks. I wouldn't pay for overgrown grass - ever
