Gardening
St Bartholomew, and his cold dew
Denis Wood
In his book, My Garden in Autumn and Winter , E. A. Bowles refers to "The dews that begin to refresh the fainting garden by the middle of August. 'St Bartholomew and his cold dew' is a popular saging ..."
St Bartholomew's Day is August 24, and it is at about this time that, in the symphony of the seasons, the violas and 'cellos begin to sound their first intimations of vanishing summer, a distant presage of autumn, when a curious suspended stillness supervenes. The Delphiniums and the Phlox will have gone, but many of the flowers of high summer remain, among them that indispensable stalwart of herbaceous borders, Achillea Gold Plate with its fine masculine outline and flat golden flowers. Many of the flowers whose names are derived from the sun will also come into their own, Helianthus Loddon Gold, 5 ft high, with its golden-yellow double flowers; Heliopsis potalo, with chrome yellow frilled flowers, also 5ft high, and the
Heleniums, among them Coppelia, coppery-orange, 3ft high. It used to be said of neglected, forsaken gardens, that they had "gone to Golden Rod and Michaelmas Daisies," but that was in the days of Solidago Golden Wings — nowadays this very aggressive tall growing Golden Rod has been largely replaced by smaller, more delicate ones, Goldenmosa with mimosa-like flowers, and only a foot high, and babies such as Golden Thumb and Laurin.
Colours to contrast with all these yellows are, in wide enough borders, the pink or white Crinums, and the indispensable aristocratic white Japanese Anemones. Beside these there are three fine blue flowers: the lovely Salvia patens, used generally as a bedding plant, although hardy in the south and west of Britain (it comes from Mexico and has cerulean blue flowers coming out in September, and continuing until the frost); Salvia uliginosa, with spikes of sky-blue flowers on long slender stems; and another Salvia, now 'known as guaranitica (previously known to me as coerulea or arnbigens), with deep azure-blue flowers persisting into October, which is known in the soulless vocabulary of nurserymen as "a shrubby perennial" and often considered to be half-hardy, but if left in the ground it will usually achieve a resurrection in the following summer.
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