A BLAZE OF AUTUMN COLOUR
It is
good to see an excellent year go out in a blaze of colour. Deciduous trees,
shrubs and ground cover have all gone into there final flurry of colour before
winter arrives. Although summer could not have been better, autumn was not as
warm and sunny as we had hoped for, so foliage colour is good but has been
better. However colour can still be found in the wealth of berries from rowans
to cotoneaster, rose hips, pyracantha and snowberry. Pyracantha can be grown as
a free standing large shrub or trained against a wall or fence where it is
perfectly happy with some spur pruning to keep it in bounds. It is fine on a
north facing wall where it turns bright red in autumn and early winter as it
covers itself in orange and red berries. Then the many forms of cotoneaster
will create a mass of red berries on evergreen bushes from the tall Cotoneaster
frigidus to the ground cover dammeri.
Hopefully
this display will last well into winter, only being reduced as our wild birds
enjoy their winter food supply. Reports of reduced blackbird numbers have been
echoed around my garden as I have not had any problem this year with loss of
outdoor grapes as my local blackie devours the crop as fast as he can. He has
been absent, and as yet not replaced with any of his young family. Thus this
year I have three and a half demijohns of Brant grape wine brewing happily from
a very vigorous yeast.
This year
has been brilliant for berries on nearly all plants.
However as
winter sets in, remaining berries on rowans and cotoneasters are often rapidly
lost as hoards of waxwings arrive from the continent and gobble their way up
north devouring every berry in sight.
My rowan
Joseph Rock is absolutely covered on large bunches of bright yellow berries to
be admired for a few months as local birds prefer red berries. However those
waxwings are not too fussy about colour. Some shrubs such as the snowberry,
Symphoricarpos albus with white tinged pink berries and Pernettya with pink,
white and mauve berries are largely ignored as a food supply for birds. These
bushes remain an attractive garden feature all winter, though by early March when
all the other berries are gone the birds have little
The
arrival of autumn is usually first seen on maples and horse chestnut trees,
then rowans, with ash usually the last to colour up. Beech trees have both size
and brilliant colour, and although birch may just be a small tree it looks
great mixed into woodland fringe plantings with rowans, elderberries and field
maples. There are so many different maples with excellent attributes that they
will form a feature all by themselves in a later article.
Plants
are selected for our gardens for their floral beauty, shape, function, ground
cover or may be our particular favourite. Plants having good autumn colour is
often of secondary importance, so we benefit when they are both attractive in
flower or with berries and have autumn colour.
Hammamelis
mollis and deciduous azaleas come to mind when you buy them for their flowers,
but then get the bonus in autumn with fiery foliage on the dying leaves.
The
upright cherry, Prunus Amanogawa, and most of the other cherries have all got
exceptional autumn colour as well as their spring blossom.
Even many
fruit bushes go dormant in a fanfare show of dazzling colour when they lose
their leaves. Blueberries turn golden, saskatoons turn orange then red,
chokeberries go deep scarlet and even my outdoor grape Brant turns red around
the huge leaf margins before falling off.
I recently planted several outdoor grape
vines, and it is great to see that they also are colouring up just nicely as
autumn takes a hold.
As the
edible landscape movement gathers popularity so our school kids see, harvest
and learn how to use natural fruit from the environment, other plants such as
rose hips and the sea buckthorn Hippophae rhamnoides, brambles, hazlenuts and
many other edible plants will find their place.
Down at
ground level, some varieties of heathers such as Calluna vulgaris Goldsworth
Crimson, Golden Feather and Gold Haze really brighten up with golden and orange
rusty coloured foliage once they get a bit of frost.
Plant of the week
Prunus subhirtella autumnalis is the autumn flowering cherry. It
may not have the huge impact of some of the spring flowering cherries, but it
is a very welcome sight to see a flowering tree with pale soft pink flowers in
November. It will continue to flower all winter if there is a few days of sunny
mild weather, but a cold frosty snap will stop the flowers. This cherry tree is
very hardy and will grow on most soils reaching over twenty feet on maturity.
It also has excellent autumn colour.
Painting of the month
Bridge over Brafferton Burn is a small oil painting with a
winter landscape image appropriate for this time of year as we head towards the
festive season. Other snow scenes, landscapes, flowers and figures are being
finished off as I get ready for my winter exhibition in my studio at the end of
November.
END
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