The Main Border in Autumn
Autumn is possibly my favourite season. I love the colour changes in the leaves and the much more relaxed feel to the garden. It's the season when non-gardeners lose interest and the those of us who enjoy getting our hands dirty can do so again as the hard summer soil loosens, finally. We get the garden centres and nurseries to ourselves for a few weeks too before the Christmas decorations take over and everyone comes back. Autumn seems to last longer every year. The leaves stay on the trees here well into November. The first frost which was always mid-October, around my birthday is now rarely until mid November. The memory of running out onto the school field wielding a hockey stick with the grass crunching beneath my hockey boots is long since past. Nowadays, the garden is still used well into Autumn. This means we want more from it, more colour, more interest right through the season.
Plenty of Autumn Colour with Gourds and Pumpkins from the Veg Patch
Keeping the garden looking good is all in the planning. Although, you can always get round that if you're willing to pay the high garden centre prices for your Autumn colour. Autumn is a great time of year to be planting any shrubs, trees and perennials as the soil is still warm, there is plenty of rainfall and the with our milder winters, the roots can establish well before spring. So, if you want to add Autumn colour to your garden now you can but it might cost a bit for a fruiting crab apple, fully leaved acer or flowering grass.
Autumn Styling with Apples and Crab Apples
What should be on your planting list?
1. Trees
I think every small garden should have an apple tree. There's something traditional and comforting about growing apples. Growing apples is a fairly straight forward thing and the trees can be selected to be small enough for any space - even a step over looks great. That said, if you're not likely to pick and use the apples, perhaps consider a crab apple. The fruit are smaller, they can be cherry sized, but they are prolific and they look amazing. Some crab apples can be used in the kitchen but otherwise the fruit is for the wild life. The stems and fruits make great Autumn decorations for the house or table.
My Acer Palmatum 'Bloodgood'
Other trees to consider are the acer family. Again, there is likely to be one for any sized garden and some can even be grown in pots. The leaves are a beautiful cut shape and they're known for the Autumn colour. My favourites are Acer palmatum 'Bloodgood' a red leaved variety (which is great for flower arrangements) that turns scarlet as the season turns and Acer palmatum dissectum atropupureum which is a smaller variety and has delicately cut leaves. With the low Autumn sunshine shining through the leaves, these trees are hard to beat.
2. Shrubs
I like my shrubs to be multi-seasonal as they are quite large features in a garden and could be a dull lump in a corner without something happening across a couple of seasons. That said, my choices might be controversial, but I like a bit of controversy. First up then are the Berberis family. I have several in the garden from the deep red or pale gold leaved varieties to the green ones. It is the plain green which are perhaps the most surprising. They have early flowers in spring and better still just explode into firework or Autumn colour. Of course, you have to mind their spikes and that's what puts others off.
The Orange and Yellow of Berberis Standing Out in Late Autumn
The Euonymous Alatus, common in parts of America, is still fairly unusual in the UK. It has odd triangular shaped stems and attracts lichen, making them of winter interest. There are flowers too in late Spring but the bright red early-mid Autumn colour is the main attraction and always gets commented on.
Then for me, I think it is the Cornus or Dogwood family, These earn their garden space for the winter stem colour alone but they do flower in early summer and have quite large leaves which, in Autumn, turn either a golden yellow or a mix of reds, depending on the variety.
3. Flowers
With the weather holding much later into Autumn it means that many late summer flowering plants last well into October or even longer. Cosmos, the summer favourite can be reaching their stride in September and October and grown from a few seeds in April, their added value is significant.
Dahlias are always worth a mention and flower later in summer and into Autumn, that is if you can give them enough sunshine and keep the slugs off long enough. They're hardly stress free mind you. They may well need lifting over winter and if not, certainly they need a heavy mulch to get them through the winter wet and frosts. For me, the easiest type to deal with are those grown from seed which flower within a season, known as Bishop's Children. The seed readily germinate and the plants grow strongly. Admittedly, the colours may vary somewhat but nature knows best and they rarely clash. If they do, just remove the offender. These flowers have the benefit of being single and although not long lasting in the vase, they are great for pollinators and bees.
Dahlia Bishop's Children Grown from seed in The Cutting Patch
Roses in our garden seem to have a new lease of life after the heat of summer. Many have their best burst of flower at the beginning of October. Some of the older, wilder varieties happily form hips for Autumn and these are great for Autumn decorations for the house.
If you are looking for bronze, russet reds or deep yellows for your Autumn colour in the garden then Rudbeckia are worth considering. With no sign of frost we are able to enjoy these daisy like flowers in a much wider range of colours than the hardy traditional yellow. Some of these plants may well make it through the winter too in a sheltered spot, making them a welcome addition and a change of colour pallet. They don't make good cut flowers, although searing the stems in boiling water for ten seconds helps a bit but they do dry quite well. Each flower head needs to be dried separately not hung up in a bunch, try an upturned crate or similar.
Drying Single Stem Flowers on an Upturned Crate
There's plenty of sedums, large and small that have a range of pink or red flowers in Autumn. These often large flat heads of flowers are a big pull for insects and bees. I love them as flowers for arrangements as they are long lasting with a strong form, allowing for something a bit different in terms of arrangements.
My Autumn favourites are the Asters or Michaelmas Daisies (or Symphyotrichum to give the their new proper name). There are many varieties of these with a varying colour pallet which ranges from deep reds, blues, violets through to pinks. You can choose the height of the plant too. The smaller varieties are more practical as they won't need staking but to make an impression in the border I go for those almost a metre tall. They will hold upright in the main but would benefit from early summer staking, not my strong point. People often avoided these plants in the past due to mildew but I've not had that problem here and I may well be that new varieties are resistant.
Sedums and Asters with Home Grown Lemon Verbena Tea
There are even a few Autumn bulbs worthy of consideration. I don't grow these particularly but have recently been given a collection of Nerine bulbs and the flowers are a stunning bright pink.
Nerines New this Year
4. Grasses
We grow a lot of grasses here and a few years ago I would be advocating everyone does the same. I am not such a fan at the moment but I am sure it's just a matter of passing taste. The Miscanthus are coming into flower at the moment (October) and these are robust enough to last through the majority of the winter. They're big plants mind and need to be placed in a border carefully. I regularly cut them for use in flower arrangements bringing the interest that gets added last.
Another worth consideration would be the Stipa Gigantea or Giant Oat. The actual plant is more manageable than the Miscanthus but it has fabulous golden seed heads over my head and looks beautiful blowing in the breeze.
My favourite would be the Blood Grass which becomes a very bright red colour in the Autumn and then dies back for winter. This grass is low growing (about eighteen inches tall) and slowly spreads (never getting out of control). It is widely available but still draws comment, widely admired each year.
My final offering would be the Bronze Carex, a low growing grass, bronze in colour. Many consider this grass to 'look dead' but actually I really like it and the effect if creates.
My top tip for our gardens would be to remember that the season we can use the garden no longer ends with the school holidays. We will be using our gardens well into October and maybe even until the clocks change. This means investing in plants that bring colour, interest and enjoyment for this time of year is more than worth our while.