Gardening: Perennially grateful

Your late summer borders might be crying out for heleniums, rudbeckia and the like, writes David Overend.

Here’s a game of family favourites – not music, but plants. And, in particular, those perennials that bring colour and form into the lives of many gardeners who work hard for just a few months of reward.

My own favourite herbaceous perennial is not one that can be ignored easily – for a blazing vibrancy you’ll never forget, it has to be heleniums, which right now are blooming in profusion. They began flowering in June but with the right conditions, they’ll still be putting on an unforgettable show several weeks later.

A few years ago, heleniums had fallen off the radar, but now, thankfully, they have become an integral part of many a late-summer border.

And it’s not just gardeners who love them; bees adore them, using the flowers’ domed centres as landing pads from which to scour for nectar.

And alongside the orange, there’s another favourite – the pink/red flowers of Echinacea, another, slightly shorter perennial tailor-made for a blooming border.

And next to them, what about rudbeckia to provide yellow and orange flowers on tall – or short – stems? “Goldsturm” is the most popular choice for back-of-the-border stems 60cm tall, while dwarf black-eyed Susan “Toto” is better for the fronts of borders.

Then there’s tickseed (coreopsis) to provide more vivid yellow bloom, and Stemmacantha centaureoides, a stunning silver-foliage and purple thistle that lights up in June and goes one better in July.