Planting combinations for August

The newly designed Rose Garden at Bruern Abbey

This is the time of year I start craving colour - pillar-box red, sunny yellow and tangerine orange, the brighter the better. Earlier in the year I don’t want these colours in my garden, but now that the garden is starting to fade (earlier than usual because of this drought), my eye needs this colour hit. The borders are taking on that tawny, golden glow that usually arrives at the beginning of September, and they need something to lift them. Usually I have cosmos in the borders to pep things up, but the few I have are scrawny and dejected due to lack of water. Even the heleniums are a shadow of their former selves.