AUTUMN COLOURS.

Author: Michael Campbell
Published on: Oct 16, 2001

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.

Daphne tanguitica has nice red berries but these seldom last long, as the pair of resident blackbirds seems to prefer them for dessert every day.

For a brilliant splash of autumn colour you can't beat Fascicularia bicolor, one of the terrestrial perennial bromeliads from central Chile. Prickly leaves that turn scarlet red at flowering time and hold their colour through autumn and winter surround the central rosette of tiny blue flowers.

Amaryllis belladonna is doing its usual thing by sprouting six flowering stems topped by soft pink trumpets, four of five per stem. The leaves don't appear until after the flowers have finished. In contrast the young plants that are not old enough to flower started into growth six weeks ago.

Cyrtanthus elatus, (Scarborough lily) is evergreen but flowers at the same time as the Amaryllis with large red trumpets. As is my usual habit with anything that is compatible, I have cross-pollinated both plants, which should produce some nice hybrids.

In the peat bed underneath the camellias, Phylliopsis Coppelia and Pinocchio with pale and deep pink flowers respectively are putting on a nice show and with Cyclamen Hederifolium help to brighten up what is otherwise a dull part of the garden at this time of the year. I must remember to add a few more autumn flowering plants to this bed. Camellias, Azaleas, and lilies bring it through the spring and summer, but it gets a little drab at this every year. In the alpine house the Dionysias are insisting on flowering in spite of my best efforts. I didn't feed them at all this year and reduced their water supply in a bid to harden the foliage before the winter. But they are still covered with flowers and it takes hours to pluck them all off. If left on the plant at this time of the year they would go mouldy on the first damp night and then it is almost impossible to save the plant. For some reason once a Dionysias gets grey mould there is no saving it, so protection is better than cure.

It is almost a daily task now removing the leaves from the scree beds. With the dry windy weather they are blowing all over the garden, but with my garden Vac it is a simple job to clear them up while making leaf-mould at the same time.

Good gardening until next time.

Tour my garden

MICHAEL J CAMPBELL