Lilium 'Black Beauty'

Late Summer Colour

Posted on by Ann Mackay

This year I haven’t had a lot of time to visit gardens, but I did manage to visit one of my favourites this week.

Last year I wrote a post about a visit to Fullers Mill Garden near Bury St Edmunds, in Suffolk. This year, my visit was slightly earlier and there were more plants still in flower.

Fullers Mill Garden 2993
A peaceful part of the garden.

Visiting a garden at different times is interesting because you notice different plants. And, for me, that means the chance to photograph them too.

This time, there were lilies still in flower, so I made a point of photographing some of those – also flowers I don’t see so often, such as eucomis and alstroemeria. There were plenty of the usual seasonal favourites: Japanese anemones, asters, dahlias, autumn crocuses, rudbekias, hydrangeas and hibiscus.

Pink flowers - lily and indigofera
Pink flowers – lily and indigofera

It was a bit of a surprise to find flowers that had long gone over in my own garden – things like indigofera, agapanthus and astrantia. Maybe having more moisture in the soil means that flowers can last for longer.

There were plenty of bright colours still, the most noticeable being the oranges of crocosmia, heleniums and ‘red-hot pokers’ (kniphofia). They’ll get a post all of their own soon.

Fullers-Mill-eucomis
Eucomis bicolor with developing seed pods.

Fullers Mill is an exciting garden for a photographer to visit because of the sheer variety of plants and the lovely setting of the garden itself. I particularly enjoyed having the opportunity to photograph the almost sculptural-looking seed pods of the eucomis. It’s a plant I rarely see, but now I feel it would be fun to have in my own garden so that I can take more photographs of it.

Fullers-Mill-grass-helenium
Imperata cylindrica ‘Red Baron (L) and a yellow helenium (R).

It was quite a windy day when we visited, so it was a challenge to photograph some of the flowers that tended to sway and dance in the breeze. The yellow helenium (above) was on of those that didn’t want to sit still and its petals look like swirling skirts – a dancer indeed!

Next year, I’d like to visit the garden in different seasons, especially in springtime. There is a great collection of irises which I’m sure would keep me happily occupied for a long time. But any time would be a good time to visit Fullers Mill Garden – there’s always something interesting to see and to photograph.

Asters 2894
Lavender-blue asters – one of my favourites of the season.

Published by Ann Mackay

Photographer, mixed-media art adventurer and completely daft about plants.......

24 thoughts on “Late Summer Colour”

  2. Fabulous colours! I’m looking forward to seeing your post of the orange flowers too. We’ve found we can visit the same garden many times and still see different things that we hadn’t seen before!

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    1. Thank you Phao – I’m happy that you like them. 🙂 I’d love to grow lilies myself, but I don’t because I have two cats and lilies are poisonous to them. So I enjoy them in gardens I visit instead.

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      2. The green ones are actually a different plant but they do look like pokers, hehe! To me, they all look like rockets – imagine the ‘fireworks’ display you could have with things like alliums too, if they all flowered at the right time! 🙂

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    1. Ah, no – it’s Indigofera heterantha. I do however, have a friend who dyes yarn for her weaving with natural dyes. It’s amazing to see the range of shades plants can provide. 🙂

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    1. Thanks Shelly! I’m glad you enjoyed the flowers! 🙂 I love visiting gardens and this is one of my favourites. It’s a really ‘feelgood’ thing to do, so I hope you do get the chance to visit some.

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    1. Thanks Lisa! They’re Michaelmas daisies. They used to be called asters, now changed to ‘symphyotrichum’, which I can’t spell without looking it up! Not sure if I can say it either, so I think I may have to stick with the old name! 🙂

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