Although the garden seems to be sliding into autumn at an alarming rate, there are still lots of plants providing colour. As I turn my back on the last blooms plummeting from crocosmia stems and ignore the rotting petals of cosmos, other plants grab my attention. In fairness, I should have mentioned Clethra alnifolia ‘Ruby Spice’ earlier because it has been in bloom for a month and is almost ‘done’ for this season but it has been so good this year that it warrants a mention.

My plant is four years old but I had to move it this spring because it was struggling a bit in a bed that was a bit too dry. I put it near the base of a north-facing sloping bed where it still gets sun but the soil is a bit moister. Clethras are growing on me because they flower in August, by which time I need relief from hydrangeas and buddlejas, and they are dainty and fragrant. They tend to prefer a moist and acid soil and most are rather similar with spikes of small, five-petalled blooms in white or cream but ‘Ruby Spice’ is a good pink. And the flowers are really fragrant. It is deciduous and has yellow autumn colour. The flowers are visited by bees and butterflies.

One of the successes of the summer has been the Clematis rehderiana. This was a gamble and planted, not far from the clethra, on the north side of the mixed hedge. I hoped it would clamber up the hawthorn and sloe, eventually scaling the ash trees. For several years it struggled, often too dry in the soil that was full of tree roots. It bravely flowered but it never looked as though it was really happy. I have read that it takes a while to establish and needs irrigation when young but then is easy to please once the roots get down into the soil.

I guess the wet summer has suited it. It did produce a few flowers in July but I could see more growth and hoped for a good later display and wow – it has arrived. This Chinese species is hardy and can be spring-pruned, as hard as you like because it flowers at the end of the new growth, in late summer. The flowers are rather small but delightful, primrose yellow bells. They have a delightful fragrance. I have noticed that honeybees, in particular, visit the flowers but they don’t venture far into them so I am guessing that they are after pollen rather than nectar, which must be deeper in the blooms than they can reach. It is a really lovely plant and well worth looking out for. If you don’t have a natural support then it could be grown on a trellis but it will probably need pruning back every spring and it is not really suitable for the smallest garden. I am confident now that mine is going to romp over the hedge.

Almost at the base of this, perhaps I was being lazy taking photos of plants that are growing together, is a shrub that was planted this spring but I have always wanted to grow. Rhodotypos scandens is a Chinese shrub that is similar to kerria but has a couple of notable differences. Firstly, and rather unusually for a Rosaceae shrub, the flowers have four petals rather than five. And the leaves are in opposite pairs and not alternate as in kerria. The flowers are also white, not yellow. These flowers are followed by black fruits a bit like a hard, large-druped blackberry but these are not edible and my plant has not produced any yet. It booms in late spring and early summer and my plant has had a smattering of blooms as it has grown bigger and I guess these late blooms are a present from the wet summer, as growth continues later than usual. I suppose that great beauty is not the main feature of the plant but it is hardy and easy to grow. I actually like the deeply pleated leaves. The name means ‘rose-like’ while scandens means ‘climbing’ which is a bit inaccurate, although it will become a mounded, arching shrub up to 2m high and wide.

clematis rehderiana, plethora alnifolia ruby spice, rhodotypos scandens