GINA PARKINSON welcomes a late-summer jewel that shines bright when other plants are going into dull decline.

IT HARDLY seems any time at all since I was writing about the small spring jewels adorning the bare earth and appearing among empty stems left from the previous summer.

These are the heralds of things to come in the garden. Now we are admiring the few gems left from the summer, plants to see out the summer and lead us into autumn.

Verbena bonariensis is such a plant, a tall seemingly delicate specimen that grows five feet or more with slender long stems carrying thin-toothed leaves and topped with small clusters of lavender flowers. It doesn’t sound much at all from this description but what a good plant it is.

Suitable for small or large spaces, this verbena can grow up through other plants, giving height without blocking the view through the space. The stems shift in a breeze and when partnered with a grass of similar habit and height will create a lovely ripple in the garden.

Although verbena bonariensis is usually grown in the UK as an annual, it is in fact a dubiously hardy perennial. A hard winter may kill it off, although some gardeners will find it comes up every year. A sheltered spot in well-drained soil will increase its chances of survival.

Where this plant is concerned, it is best to be an untidy gardener and leave the dead stems on the plant to help protect it during the winter. A sheltered spot in well-drained soil will also help it to survive the frost.

The old growth can be removed in spring once new growth is coming through strongly. It is also worth mulching the crown of the plant with a layer of leaf mould or compost.

Seed-grown verbena bonariensis will flower in the same year from seed sown from February to March. They need to be kept warm indoors to germinate, then grown on and potted up as they get larger, before being hardened off and planted out once the danger of frost has passed.

It is also worth allowing mature plants to self-seed. The seedlings will pop up near the parent plant and can be left where they’ve germinated or transplanted elsewhere in the garden. Full sun and well-drained soil is their preferred home where they will flower from June until the first frosts.


In the vegetable garden

THE early-ripening plums on our tree were wormy, which was very disappointing. We spent an hour so plucking the fruit from the tree and opening up each one to check for an inhabitant. Every single plum was providing a delicious home to the larvae of a fruit moth.

This has apparently become quite a problem in recent years, but we were advised that later-ripening fruit would almost certainly be edible.

This has proved to be the case, although we’ve still checked everything that has been harvested. So the plum crop has been okay this year and we’ve made plum conserve and stewed the rest.

It has been an excellent summer for fruit and as well as the plums we’ve had a good crop of gooseberries, brambles and now the Autumn raspberries are beginning to ripen.

Our little apple tree is also bearing a decent crop. The fruit on this tree is so large that the branches tend to break, so earlier in the summer we thinned out many of the embryonic fruits.

We are not sure what this tree is but it is to be joined later in the year by a new one, a Ribston pippin, which should arrive in November.


Garden fair

FLOWER Power Fairs will hold an Autumn plant fair tomorrow at Sutton Park, Sutton-on-the-Forest, just outside of York.

The fair will be open from 11am-4pm and is to be attended by more than 15 plant specialists selling high quality plants.

These will include shrubs and climbers, roses and herbs, herbaceous perennials and plenty of winter and spring flowering bulbs set out under two Cedar of Lebanon trees.

This is the final Flower Power fair of the season with entry to the fair £3.50 per person which also includes access to the gardens that surround the house.

The café will be open throughout the day and there is plenty of free parking. Disabled parking is beside the plant fair.

The house will also be open to visitors (additional charge).


Gardening TV and radio

Tomorrow

7am, BBC2, Around the World in 80 Gardens. With Monty Don.

8am, BBC Radio Humberside, The Great Outdoors. With Blair Jacobs and Doug Stewart.

8.30am, BBC2, Gardeners’ World. Tips on autumn lawn care and miniature bulbs.

9am, BBC Radio York, Julia Lewis.

9am, BBC Radio Leeds, Tim Crowther and Joe Maiden.

9am, BBC2, The Beechgrove Garden. Jim McColl sows vegetables.

2pm, BBC R4, Gardeners’ Question Time. This week’s progamme comes from the Wirral where chairman Peter Gibbs and panellists Matt Biggs, Bob Flowerdew, Anne Swithinbank and James Wong answer questions from an audience at Ness Botanic Gardens.

Friday

2pm, BBC R4, Gardeners’ Question Time. Eric Robson chairs the programme from north east London and is joined by Matt Biggs, Bob Flowerdew and Anne Swithinbank.

8.30pm, BBC2, Gardeners’ World. Monty Don and Carol Klein visit RHS Rosemoor in Devon where they look at growing fruit trees in small spaces and are inspired by the extensive sedum collection.