AUTUMN COLOURS.

Autumn is one of the most colourful seasons in the garden as the leaves turn the garden into a beautiful tapestry of red, yellow and gold. Japanese maples out-strip all the others with its intensity of colours, and when strategically placed can light up the whole garden. Add the autumn flowering bulbs such as Nerine bowdenii, Colchicum autumnalis, autumn flowering crocus, and you have a tapestry of colours that spring would find hard to match.

Have you ever noticed that most of the early spring flowering bulbs and shrubs are yellow, and the autumn bulbs and shrubs are soft reds and pinks with the occasional pale blue. Cyclamen hederifolium must surely be one of the best of the autumn flowering plants and definitely justifies the rent for the small area occupied. Not only does it flower continuously for up to three months, but also then it produces a mass of beautiful foliage with silver shield like markings that last until the following summer, when the hot weather burns it up.

One of the advantages of Cyclamen hederifolium is that no two plants have the same markings, and if you plant a number of tubers you can have a variety of different leaf patterns.

If you add the variation in flower colour ranging from pure white through pink and ruby, and then add the scent that some of the varieties have, this must definitely be the best value for money in the autumn garden. As an added bonus, once planted you can forget about it (it hates disturbance,) and it will gently seed around without becoming a nuisance.

Cyclamen coum can even outstrip Hederifolium for leaf colour with everything from plane green through pewter, silver, and every variation of these colours, with Christmas tree patterns in the centre of the leaves. Unlike Hederifolium, the flowers come after the foliage, usually from November through January.

The weather has been unusually warm and dry for the past week, with daytime temperatures reaching 20º C on most days. The autumn flowering crocus is enjoying the sunshine opening their lavender petals wide, displaying their red stamens, as an invitation to any insect that would care to pay a visit.

Berries also play their part in the kaleidoscope of colour at this time and none more so than Pyracantha. P. Orange glow is by and far the best with every branch laden with bright orange berries. When trained against a fence or wall the result is spectacular, and the birds leave them alone until well into January.

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