Peter Dowdall can’t get enough of plants that look after themselves

I don’t do high maintenance. This is fine really because most plants are not high maintenance. 

When we humans get involved and put plants in the wrong place that’s when maintenance can become an issue.

In other words if you put a Eucalyptus in a small garden outside a window where you want a plant to grow to about 1m (3’) then you have just given yourself a rather substantial maintenance regime, cutting back and pruning regularly as it will want to get upwards of 20 metres.

Far better to choose something that wants to only reach a metre like a dwarf Rhododendron or azalea perhaps.

I need plants that look after themselves. With some good plant selection in terms of height and spread and good soil preparation then my garden should be self-sufficient.

It’s not that I mind the work involved, on the contrary I love it, gardening is my passion, my life. Rather it’s that nasty word ‘time’ again. I simply don’t have enough of it.

I would love to have more time for my own garden but that’s the whole life/work balance thing that everybody faces. The one job that I never get around to is lifting those plants that need to be taken out of the ground at the end of the autumn.

Its laziness mixed with the cockiness that comes from living in Cork. So many plants will survive down here that wouldn’t stand a chance in other parts of this island.

Dahlias for example really need to be taken out of the ground at the end of the year and the tubers should be dried off and wrapped up in newspaper, straw or a tray of vermiculite, nice and snug for the winter.

It’s good too at that time to divide your dahlia tubers and bulk up on the numbers.

If left in the ground they are at risk of being killed off by the low winter temperatures or, as what tends to happen to mine, they will die from being left in ground that is too wet during the winter.

Another tuberous plant, similar to the dahlia which is coming into its best now is Cosmos astrosanguineus. Native to Mexico where there are no longer any naturally occurring in the wild, this herbaceous gem never produces viable seed and can only be propagated by cuttings or division.

I grow it purely for its aesthetic qualities as I love the simple daisy type flowers that are produced on stems up to 50cm high from now well into late autumn.

I have several established clumps in my garden that are now in their fourth year, I had to replant after 2010, the year of those two most severe winters, though I still have two clumps growing in pots that came through those cold years and are now entering their 11th flowering season.

Think for one moment about their provenance. They originated in Mexico and cannot be grown from seed which means that the plants growing in my garden can be traced back eventually to a cutting or division from one of those original Mexican specimens. So how its enjoying the damp climate of Cork, I’m not so sure.

Most people think of this plant purely for its scent as it lives up to its common name Chocolate Cosmos with a strong aroma of chocolate during sunny summer days.

Being honest you will struggle to find much to interest the olfactory nerve on a cold and dull day but nestle your nose into a bloom when the sun is shining from a blue sky and it is like smelling a box of Black Magic.

Leaving the fragrance aside for a moment this Cosmos is unlike the summer flowering annual Cosmos in a few ways. The foliage is not open and fernlike and it is not an annual.

The colour though is something that I haven’t mentioned yet and I am trying to think how to describe it, for nothing else in the garden offers a similar hue. If I said the blooms were brown then I have just done this beauty a dis-service.

If on the other hand I describe them as Burgundy red I am not being entirely accurate as they are more than that. The second part of the species name sanguineus is from the Latiin word for blood and this is clearly in reference to the flower colour.

It is a stunning colour, whatever name it’s given, turning quite dark and dramatic on dull days and positively sparkling, glittering on bright, sunny days. Indeed it requires a warm sunny position to thrive.

This is what I have given it in my garden and again, if you give a plant what it wants then it will do its thing year on year with little or no maintenance. My kind of plant.

This is as essential a plant in any mixed planting or herbaceous border as any of the other plant royalty such as Delphiniums, Lupins, Verbascums and Heleniums. The dark colour will contrast well with brighter plants.

Keep an eye out for the variety ‘Chocamocha’ which has noticeably shoorter stems making it a more compact plant less likely to get blown around in the wind and with blooms that have an even stronger fragrance.