Two frosts in the first week, but while the garden capitulates and spectacle goes on
Even after the first frosts, our salvias still ablaze in Whitebeam Allee
Hawthorns, hips and spindle compete for our attention in the Hedgerows
RHS Hyde Hall continues to inspire us even into deepest autumn
We’re busy rejuvenating beds for next year. Trying (and mostly failing) to be more ruthless, moving new favourites to garden areas where we can see more of them.
Top November plants
Flowers for cutting
The garden supplies cut flowers from the earliest February daffs right through to November. We're still getting vases of Alstroemerias, bright blue cornflowers, scarlet salvias and pure white Corn Cockles with their delicate beading
Top plants – when they flower – what they bring to the garden
| 1. Geranium Rozanne | May-Frost | Endless cups of mid-blue |
| 2. Persicaria Affinis | June – Nov | Dusky rose brushes fading to pink |
| 3. Pyracantha Orange Glow | Oct – Dec | Festoons of apricot berry clusters |
| 4. Euphorbia Wulfenii | All seasons | Swaying towers of green |
| 5. Mahonia | Oct – Jan | Spiky lemon fingers on dark green |
| 6. Mexican Salvia | May-Frost | Eye-searing colour |
| 7. White Corn Cockle | June-Frost | Immaculate white saucers |
| 8. Alstroemeria | May-Frost | Wow-factor trumpets yellow thru to red |
| 9. Rudbeckia Triloba | July-Nov | Showers of small black-eyed-susan blooms |
| 10. Eleagnus Maculata | All seasons | Glossy dark green leaves dipped in lemon |
Alstroemerias are great value cut flowers, often lasting two weeks.
Sweetpeas need constant updating but come with a far-ranging honey scent.
Echinops and Larkspur were a long-lasting team. A vase evolved over six weeks or more.
Whitebeam Allee
Here’s Whitebeam Allee in the first week of November, just before the first frost. The Hydrangea flowers may be going brown but the sedums, salvias and our hardest-working geranium, Rozanne, are still flowering strongly.
Elsewhere, White Corn Cockles have surprised us and the Alstromoerias are hanging on enough to fill vases with cut flowers.
Garden Rooms in November
RHS Hyde Hall
Elsewhere on this November page, you’ll see images from Hyde Hall taken in late October. However, it wouldn’t be fair to suggest that this is it’s best time of year. This image from the summer is far more typical of what it has to offer.
The RHS has invested heavily in this garden of late with a new complex with a restaurant, gallery and educational building. It also has a smart new(ish) potager with an impressive greenhouse.
There are lakes, gravel gardens, rose gardens and sweeping lawns with mixed-planted beds.
Wild spectacle: Berries and hips
Before the frost starts to dull them, rose hips, hawthorn berries and neat spindle parcels flash in the hedgerows.
As with fruit trees, blackberries and sloes, this has been an incredibly bountiful year for hips and berries.
The first time I saw spindle berries I couldn’t believe they were a natural phenomenon. Wood from the tree was used to make wool spinning spindles. The berries are poisonous to us but eaten by birds and mice.
