episode 80 | show notes & advice
Episode description
Sarah and Arthur share their must-haves from the Autumn range, highlighting some of the exciting new tulip collections they’ll be planting this season, along with some trusty old favourites. This episode is packed full of ideas and inspiration for planting your autumn garden to give you a beautiful array of colour in the spring, as well as plenty to enjoy now, including nourishing homegrown winter salads and herbs to liven up your cooking and beautiful decorations for the house.
In this episode, discover…
- Sarah and Arthur’s picks from the latest tulip collections in the Autumn range
- Three brand new tulip varieties Sarah has been trialling at Perch Hill
- Sarah and Arthur’s favourite daffodils and their pairings
- The best winter salads to keep you healthy through the cooler months
- Shrubs for scent and colour
- Sarah’s picks for decorating the house
Episode 80 advice sheet
The First palette: Rich - crimsons, deep purple, vermilion rich orange – the velvet colours
Sarah
· Teal Bucket Tulip Collection– looking so like velvet
Contains 5 bulbs each of Tulips ‘Antraciet’, ‘Ridgedale’, ‘Slawa’, ‘Colour Fusion’ and ‘Raye’
- Includes the deep, rich colours and longstanding favourites ‘Antraciet’ and ‘Ridgedale’ (both of which are doubles so very long-lasting)
- But with an extra zap of naughtiness from a couple of new tulips - ‘Colour Fusion’, one of the fringed varieties, which looks great scattered through the rest and ‘Raye’ as the gatecrasher
- Very beautiful and looks good with green which is perfect for the beginning of the year
Arthur
New collection of ‘Palmyra’ and ‘Brown Sugar’ – a lovely pairing for pots in particular, or scattered through a border - both have beautiful big heads of tulips.‘Palmyra’ is very early and ‘Brown Sugar’ will come later but they’ll meet each other for at least a fortnight.
- Really good collection if you’re looking for clouty, beautiful, bold tulips
- The rich mulberry coloured ‘Palmyra’ on a very strong stem, is a double so no good for bees but makes a fantastic, long-lasting cut flower and garden present
- ‘Brown Sugar’ is a classic orange single tulip with a beautiful scent
The Second palette: The Bold and Brilliant
Sarah
· Bold and Brilliant Tulip Collection – pink, crimson, dark red and orange, looking very much like a jar of boiled sweets in an old-fashioned sweet shop.
Contains 5, 10 or 15 bulbs each of Tulips ‘Mariette’, ‘Lasting Love’, ‘Ballerina’ and ‘Sarah Raven’
o Joyful, cheerful and spirit-lifting
Arthur
· Rose Border Tulip Collection – bright colours and very perennial
Contains 5 or 10 bulbs each of Tulips ‘Aleppo’, ‘Brown Sugar’, ‘Apricot Foxx’ and ‘Antraciet’
- ‘Aleppo’ – a fringed petal variety in a shade akin to Lucozade mixed with grapefruit juice – orange, dashed with apricot coral-pink
- ‘Antraciet’ – a double tulip in a really beautiful, plum tart crumble pinkish tone
- ‘Apricot Foxx’ – soft-chalky orange, great scattered through the roses or any flower garden
- ‘Brown Sugar’ – tall coppery bronze brilliant with ‘Aleppo’
Tip for this collection: Plant biennial honesty on top of your tulips, as it starts to flower just as the tulips are starting to go over, although they may meet if the weather is good
Arthur
· The Circus Tulip Collection
Contains 10 or 15 bulbs each of Tulips ‘Texas Flame’, ‘Helmar’ and ‘Rems Favourite’
- This collection makes Arthur very happy every time he sees it at Perch Hill
- Good for a large garden and great for picking
- One to plant for pressing tulips
The Third palette: Soft and Cool – mauve, purple, blue, crisp snow white
Sarah
· The Super Perennial Tulip Collection
Contains 15 or 30 bulbs each of Tulips ‘Groenland’, ‘Spring Green’ and ‘Artist’
o This has been a good stalwart seller for 20 years, Sarah first planted this under roses when she first arrived at Perch Hill and it’s still coming up
o If you only buy one group of tulips for a border, this collection is an absolute winner
o Super perennial and beautiful shades of pink and green, white and green, a terracotta and orange and green
Arthur
· The Farmhouse Garden Collection
Contains 5 or 10 bulbs each of Tulips ‘Lasergame’, ‘White Valley’, ‘Mistress’, ‘Green Wave’, ‘White Heart’ and ‘Cabanna’
- Traditional cottage garden colours
- Scattergun them and plot them where they land so they look natural
- Arthur planted this last year in his grandmother’s garden along with honesty, and the mix of the heart of the tulips and the fluttering confetti of the honesty flowers was so beautiful
The Fourth palette: Soft and Warm – milky coffee, soft apricot, pastels
Sarah
· The Coral Sand Tulip Collection
Contains 5 or 15 bulbs each of Tulips ‘Apricot Copex’, ‘Ridgedale’, ‘Apricot Foxx’ and ‘Copper Image’
- One of Sarah’s favourite tulip collections in the garden this spring
- The combination of ‘Copper Image’ – a strange, browny, pinky, rather sophisticated vintage silk colour, with ‘Ridgedale’ – a Victoria Plum with a blush on the outer skin, and a bit of contrast from the soft apricots, is incredible
- Came into flower at the end of March and stayed for five or six weeks
Individual Tulips
Sarah
Tulip ‘Acuminata’ – for pressing flowers
· Looks much more like a wild tulip - like a Daddy longlegs crossed with a spider
· Red and yellow, but ethereal, Kate Bush-ghostly, elegant and wafty
· Presses amazingly due to its shape
Arthur
Tulip ‘Little Beauty’ – aclouty pink, almost magenta in the sun and beautiful en masse with the orange Tulip ‘Little Princess’. Both are very perennial.
Sarah
Three new tulips, Sarah saw in Holland when we first came out of lockdown she is really excited by:
· ‘Belleville’ – a very unusual yellow ochre with a lovely deep orange-purple blush on the outside, stunning growing in the border, and cut for the vase
· ‘Cadence’– the most intense, saturated, extraordinary orange, that literally glowed in the dusk and the dawn from its position in the Oast Garden this spring, and then flowered for ages
· ‘Green Power’ – originally selected from Keukenhof in spring 2019 and then forgotten about, until a return visit with Sarah’s business partner Lou, when they both fell on it. It looks almost like a pistachio ice cream with small flecks and flushes of pink through it. Being a green tulip, it flowers for at least six weeks making it brilliant garden value. A passionate recommendation from Sarah.
Daffodils
Arthur
Narcissus poeticus var. recurvus (‘Old Pheasant’s Eye’)
· Without a lawn, plant them in small pots so you can move the pot into the house as a living perfume factory
· Overplanted with the Viola ‘Tiger Eye Red’ makes the loveliest pairing, as the redness of the middle of the Pheasant’s Eye meets the daintiness of the viola
· Before planting bulbs in pots, do make sure that your pots have drainage holes in them
Rose of May – which genuinely flowers in May, beautifully fragrant with the scent of Stephanotis
Sarah
Narcissus ‘Lieke’ – very elegant, scented and beautiful through a vase of Amelanchier blossom
The Bedside Table Collection
Contains 10 bulbs each of Narcissi ‘My Story, ‘Actaea’, ‘Sir Winston Churchill’, ‘Pink Charm’ and ‘Lieke’
- All highly scented and ice cream parfait-esque
- ‘Sir Winston Churchill’ is a double and ‘Pink Charm’ the colour of pink grapefruit
- Lasts seven to eight days in the vase
Next pick from the Autumn range
Arthur
Gladiolus Byzantinus (Whistling Jack) – the most vivid, magenta-purple that rockets up through long grass and a nice cheap bulb. It naturalises so will thrive in grass.
Sarah - something new in 2022
We had this planted en masse in the greenhouse; it started flowering in February and we cut it down recently.
Ranunculus Butterfly ‘Ariadne’ and ‘Lycia’ - these are semi-double or even single
· ‘Ariadne’ is particularly exquisite - an off-white washed with a shelly, slightly soft, gentle pink with each petal looking like silk wedding dress fabric
· Sarah picked lots of this and Arthur created a beautiful display with big boughs of blossom and Amelanchier
· Stems are almost a metre long
· Vase life of 2 weeks
· Expensive but completely perennial
Arthur
New Foxglove Collection
Contains 5 jumbo seedlings each of Digitalis purpurea ‘Pam’s Choice’, ‘Sutton’s Apricot’ and f.albiflora
· The very stylish‘Pam’s Choice’is a favourite for both Arthur and Sarah
· Arthurlikens the colour of each trumpet to a Müller fruit corner yoghurt when you’ve put the blackberry compote on top of the white yoghurt!
· Foxgloves are one of the best things you can plant for bees
· Get them in the ground before it gets too cold and they’ll do really well
Arthur
Hellebore Maestro – a subtle dusky pink giving you months of flower before everything else wakes up
· It will come back year-on-year
· Perfect winter or Christmas present giving you flowers through winter into early spring
· Very happy in a pot on a shady doorstep or a nice moist basement garden
· Leaves are beautiful for the rest of the year
Scent – Wallflowers and Honeysuckle
Sarah
Rich Velvet Wallflower Collection
Contains a seed mix or 5 or 10 jumbo seedlings each of Wallflowers ‘Ruby Gem’, ‘Fire King’ and ‘Vulcan’
· Sarah loves these lining a path en masse, going from ‘Fire King’ in toffee apple orange, to ‘Ruby Gem’ - a pinky amethyst, to ‘Vulcan’ - a deep wine red
· Planted for their perfume and as carpets for the tulips to rocket up through
· Great for picking and then sear the stem ends in boiling water. As they’re part of the brassica family, add some vinegar into the water to stop any potential pong.
Lonicera periclymenum ‘Strawberries and Cream’
· Great for a small garden or if you’re mainly growing in pots
· Only grows to around 1m
· Incredible powderpuff perfume
Arthur’s choice of shrub
Cornus ‘Midwinter Fire’
· Looking like a wonderful burning bonfire in a pot, particularly when hit by the winter sun, glowing in all different shades of yellow, orange and then amber.
· Really nice for a pot and would also make a lovely hedge for a small garden
· Every second year give it a light prune, so you get more of the fresh growth which has the most colour
Edibles
Winter salads
· Hardy Winter Salad Leaf Collection– tried and tested by Sarah over many years
Contains 5 seedlings each of Komatsuna, Rocket Salad ‘Serrata’, Mizuna, Mustard ‘Red Frills’ and Mizuna ‘Red Knight’ F1
· Handsome Winter Lettuce Collection
Contains 20 seedlings each of Lettuces ‘Cerbiatta’, ‘Cos Freckles’, ‘Rouge d’Hiver’ and ‘Outredgeous’
Sarah recommends doing a base with one of Handsome Winter Lettuce Collection salad leaves, harvested by picking the individual leaves, not taking the whole heart at once, and then toss it through with some of the punchier salad leaves like Mustard ‘Red Frills’ or Rocket Salad ‘Serrata’.
Arthur
· Rhubarb Collection
Contains 1 or 2 (two-year-old) crowns each of Rhubarb ‘Timperley Early’, ‘Raspberry Red’ and ‘Victoria’ – much cheaper than buying rhubarb fresh
· Herbs from Autumn until Spring collection
Contains Chervil, Parsley ‘Gigante di Napoli’, Coriander ‘Leisure’ and Winter Savory
Arthur’s chosen the herbs for a worthwhile cause close to his heart – a campaign against buying herbs in plastic wrapping imported from places like Morocco! On a more aesthetic note, these herbs also look nice in pots.
Home and lifestyle decoration
Sarah
Ornate Candelabra
Inspired by an ornate candelabra Sarah found in a brocante shop about five years ago, this is Sarah’s pick of the home and lifestyle products. A very versatile piece which she says, looks good on the mantelpiece or any table due to its rectangular shape and five candleholders, and it’s not too smart or shiny - more shabby chic which she loves.
Everlasting Chinese Lantern Branches
“The real Chinese lanterns drop off so easily!”, so now Sarah prefers just to use these faux lanterns, creating a big vase, mixed with something like Sanguisorba seedheads, Japanese anemone seedheads or Stipa gigantea, for an everlasting and really lovely arrangement.
Squirrel Proof Bird Feeder
· Wonderful to keep the bird population high, and even more important to feed them as we go into the winter
· Remember to hang it low enough in a branch so that the squirrels can’t just hang down and eat the nuts, and squirrel proof what you’re hanging it from too. Sarah suggests using wire instead of string which she has found Perch Hill squirrels have eaten their way through in a bid to get to the nuts and seeds inside.
Bare Root Roses
Arthur is very proud of the bare root rose range and the one he’s intending to plant en masse this winter is Rosa ‘Mutabilis’ for its elegance and colour.
· May be planted in pots, underplanted with Salvia (as per Sarah’s recommendation for keeping black spot at bay)
· The flowers change colour, starting out magenta pink, fading to peach
· Single flowers, so fantastic for pollinators
· Beautiful coral foliage in the spring as well