October 2022
Stephen says
This is a month to appreciate the incredible late autumn colour that surrounds us here at Aston Pottery and Gardens. The Dahlia border is in full flower, enhanced by the low autumn light streaming through the central spine of grasses: Panicum virgatum ‘Squaw’ with its’ fine, airy dark purple seed heads, Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’ standing tall and upright showing off its long flower stems of golden seed heads and Calamagrostis brachytrica with its full and fluffy plume like-purple tinged seed heads.
The Traditional Border and the Hornbeam Walkway are now bursting with a mixture of late perennials with the asters becoming the stars of the show.
The Tropical border is full of colour too, with the pinks of salvias contrasting with red stems of the Ricinus and the dark leaves of the dahlias, cannas and bananas. This border often gets missed by our visitors as it is behind the shop. It is well worth seeking out.
The Annual border is just glorious. A few packets of seed sown in late April this year has produced and incredible display that will continue till the first frosts.
Behind the scenes
We are still deadheading dahlias to encourage continued flowering.
We are also taking Salvia cuttings to ensure we have future stock for the perennial borders.
The parent Dahlias, which we have in pots have now been moved into the poly tunnel to protect them from excessive rain and frost. These will be over wintered and then cuttings taken from them in late spring.
Plant of the month
This month it has to be the Sunflowers. The Dahlias are, of course, attention grabbing but we are also marvelling at the sunflowers at the back of the annual border. These were sown back in April and 2 weeks before the big plant out, they were eaten by mice! So we did an emergency re-sow and managed to get then to germinate and grow sufficiently large enough to be planted out just 2 weeks after sowing. We are very proud of how well they have done.
Garden Tips
Continue to deadhead dahlias and annuals to encourage the production of new flowers. Ensure you have staked any tall plants that may be damaged by the wind will begin to increase as we move into winter.
In the News
The world renowned garden photographer Clive Nichols has launched his new book “Brilliant English Gardens”. It is full of stunning photographs, including some of the borders here at Aston Pottery. A few signed copies of his book are available in the shop.
Volunteering
Our gardening team is very small.
Stephen is head gardener, when he is not making pottery, baking cakes, serving in the café or helping in the shop.
Nicky volunteers one day per week, Gill volunteers one morning a week, Richard volunteers 3 days a week and Kian works in the garden and workshop 4 to 5 days a week.
More help would be very welcome. Would you like to volunteer too, either on a regular basis or for one of our big plant outs?
You will be reward by being surrounded with wonderful people and plants, along with a cuppa and some fabulous cake (and lunch if you do a full day).
If you are interested, please contact Stephen Baughan via email at info@astonpottery.co.uk.
