ONE of my favourite perennials, the pink Sedum spectabile “Autumn Joy”, is an amazing plant in its own right and also a firm favourite in Britain and Holland, where it is planted en masse for a wonderful autumnal flower display.

Interestingly, when it finishes flowering in autumn, the first frosts quickly wither the leaves and flower stalks. If you have not already done so, cut all the frost-affected top to ground level. Immediately, you will see a mass of tiny green shoots, which will continue to grow all through winter and although the top growth of autumn is killed off by frost, the tiny, seemingly delicate, new shoots are unaffected by frost at all.

By the middle of spring these will be centimetres tall providing lush green growth all summer. Look out also for the white-flowering Sedum spectabile “Iceberg”.

SINCE returning from holidays, I have been busy raking leaves and filling the compost heap, at the same time adding a good handful of garden lime to each barrow load of leaves etcetera. I have previously mentioned the damage that can result with an accumulation of wet leaves on hedges. It is equally important to remove wet leaves that can easily kill plants from ground covers such as thyme or convolvulus.

I have also been busy cutting back perennial plants.

Which ones? To start with, all the salvias, asters (Michaelmas daisies), campanulas (Canterbury Bells), Sedum “Autumn Joy” and chrysanthemums can be cut to ground level.

When doing this, you will immediately notice the first green shoots of new spring growth. All of these can be dug up and divided, using two thirds to fill vacant spots in the garden and one third to place back in the original planting hole.

This is a cheap and easy way to increase the number of plants in your garden. They also pot up nicely for the church or school spring fete.

In my case, I underestimated the ultimate size of salvias planted last season, such as Salvia “Heatwave Brilliance” growing to more than 75cm tall and getting tangled with other nearby plants.

Obviously, I need to relocate these to allow sufficient space to do them justice. Now is the time to do the relocating and, at the same time, try to remember where I had planted bulbs!

 

HERE’S something different when it comes to family pets. Recently, I visited a large Dutch garden owned by Albert Tielens, a garden designer like me.

Walking around this amazing garden I noticed, from a distance, what looked like a stone pig. Getting closer, this huge pig was gently snoring away in the sunshine. Albert seem unperturbed that the pet pig was lying on the clipped box hedging plants. I understand in larger gardens, in England and Holland, pigs are becoming popular as pets, although there are smaller types than shown here!

 

WITH the winter solstice behind us, it is now downhill all the way to spring. It may not seem so but the days will gradually get longer as we think about the coming splash of colour of spring bulbs.

In the meantime, continue to feed them with a high-potassium plant food to encourage flowering right up until you see evidence of flower heads forming.

In the winter garden…

• Break the ice on the bird bath before leaving for work.

• Wait until frosts are over before pruning frost-damaged leaves on evergreen shrubs.

• Wait until late winter before planting onion seedlings.

• Remove old wood on hydrangeas and reduce last year’s growth to three leaf nodes (joints).