Beds and borders<\/a> reach their peak in high summer and are held, helped here and there by a gardener\u2019s hand. Or perhaps we will pop in a flowering plant to give an injection of colour. From July through to September, the planting is at its most exuberant, the light at its most intense and the colours at their most saturated. As we move towards the end of the season, our thoughts and actions are firmly focused on the future, learning and improving on this year for the next. But at Sissinghurst the past is never forgotten.<\/p> You may also like<\/strong><\/p> High summer in the Orchard sees us returning to an age-old craft to cut our hay. Scything in the summer sun, hayricks drying, it\u2019s hard not to feel the strong ties to the garden of Vita Sackville-West<\/a> and Harold Nicolson. Scything<\/a> is a task that is in tune with the seasons and of the land. It\u2019s a pastoral, simpler, slower way of gardening and living, and one memorably described by Vita in her poem, The Garden<\/em>: The Cottage Garden, also known as the Sunset Garden, was a favourite with both Vita and Harold \u2013 the innermost of what Harold called Sissinghurst\u2019s \u2018succession of privacies\u2019. It is an intimate, enclosed space and although visually connected to the rest of Sissinghurst, it feels secluded and private<\/a>.<\/p> Foliage underpins any planting; it acts as a wonderful prelude to the floral element, providing a base note to the entire scheme, but for Vita and for me it is the subtle use of colour that sets the planting in this part of the garden apart.<\/p> Vita carefully restricted her planting to variations of orange, red and yellow. In spring the plants are low, but they generously fill the beds so that everywhere fat cushions of flower and foliage sprawl and spill over paths, lending a romantic luxuriance. Heaps of yellow Helianthemum<\/em> \u2018Wisley Primrose\u2019, scarlet Geum<\/a><\/em> \u2018Blazing Sunset\u2019 and bright-orange Trollius chinensis<\/em> \u2018Golden Queen\u2019 are punctuated with broad swathes of the dark, dusky wallflowers Erysimum<\/a><\/em> \u2018Blood Red\u2019 and Erysimum<\/em> \u2018Fire King\u2019, and just enough foliage from bearded irises and the daylily Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus<\/em>. The sultry wine-coloured flowers of Rosa<\/em> \u2018Dusky Maiden\u2019 are in turn echoed by the purple-coloured leaves of Canna<\/em> \u2018Wyoming\u2019. Liberal dollops of the native field poppy, Papaver rhoeas<\/em>, knit the whole thing together.<\/p> In summer you can feel your pulse racing as the garden throbs in a tidal wave of colour, none more spectacular than the amazing vermilion-coloured flowers of Crocosmia<\/a><\/em> \u2018Lucifer\u2019 in tandem with Dahlia<\/em> \u2018Brandaris\u2019. Dahlias<\/a> were a favourite of Harold\u2019s and the Cottage Garden features Dahlias<\/em> \u2018Yellow Hammer\u2019, bright-orange Dahlias<\/em> \u2018East Court\u2019, gentle-orange Dahlias<\/em> \u2018Autumn Lustre\u2019, red Dahlias<\/em> coccinea<\/em> and lemon-yellow Dahlias<\/em> \u2018Glorie van Heemstede\u2019.<\/p> Tender shrubby salvias such as S. fulgens are also an important element, together with clusters of flatheads of achilleas. The accents are provided by red hot pokers, which Vita liked and Harold hated; the incredibly tall and striking Iris spuria, standing nearly 2m tall; and substantial plantings of Verbascum bombyciferum<\/em> \u2018Polarsommer\u2019 and our own Cottage Garden hybrid, raised annually from seed collected by the gardeners. Knitting this Rousseauesque planting together is the light and airy Patrinia scabiosifolia<\/em>. The chrome-yellow coloured flowers punctuate the air like a swarm of hovering flies.<\/p> Recently we have introduced the fantastic Moraea huttonii<\/em> to the planting scheme. A relative of the iris family from the high mountains of South Africa, it has tall, wiry stems up to 1.2m high, which hold numerous sweetly scented yellow flowers with curious brown markings. Huge drifts hang over the lower-storey planting like sheets of faded muslin, alongside bronze fennel, Foeniculum vulgare <\/em>\u2018Purpureum\u2019. <\/p> USEFUL INFORMATION<\/strong> <\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n As the garden\u2019s hot borders reach their seasonal peak, head gardener Troy Scott Smith shows how he and his team keep the interest going through summer and manage important tasks. Photographs John Campbell <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":38932,"template":"","categories":[1,17,51],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"5"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2024\/08\/high-summer-at-sissinghurst-the-head-gardeners-top-tips-on-keeping-your-garden-colourful-all-summer.jpg",2560,1800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2024\/08\/high-summer-at-sissinghurst-the-head-gardeners-top-tips-on-keeping-your-garden-colourful-all-summer-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2024\/08\/high-summer-at-sissinghurst-the-head-gardeners-top-tips-on-keeping-your-garden-colourful-all-summer-300x211.jpg",300,211,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2024\/08\/high-summer-at-sissinghurst-the-head-gardeners-top-tips-on-keeping-your-garden-colourful-all-summer-768x540.jpg",768,540,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2024\/08\/high-summer-at-sissinghurst-the-head-gardeners-top-tips-on-keeping-your-garden-colourful-all-summer-1024x720.jpg",800,563,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2024\/08\/high-summer-at-sissinghurst-the-head-gardeners-top-tips-on-keeping-your-garden-colourful-all-summer-1536x1080.jpg",1536,1080,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2024\/08\/high-summer-at-sissinghurst-the-head-gardeners-top-tips-on-keeping-your-garden-colourful-all-summer-2048x1440.jpg",2048,1440,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"As the garden\u2019s hot borders reach their seasonal peak, head gardener Troy Scott Smith shows how he and his team keep the interest going through summer and manage important tasks. Photographs John Campbell","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/38931"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Bred](\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/40\/2024\/07\/GI-Sissinhurst-July-Garden-Entrance_1010_preview.jpg\")
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