Welcome to the Autumn Garden!
The autumn should be a time of glorious colour in the seasonal garden. There are many sorts of trees and shrubs bearing foliage which changes colour through shades of orange, red and yellow, as the season progresses.
The best colour occurs when the days are warm and dry, while the nights steadily grow steadily cooler.
If you have maples and the stag's-horn maple in your garden and Virginia creeper or the Boston ivy on the walls, you'll know all about those colours. Other trees that show good foliage in this and other seasons are the sweet gum, liquidambar, and the Chinese Nyssa.
This is the time for bold stands of dahlias and rudbeckias, sunflowers at the back of the border and clumps of sedums, all in the colour range of dark-pink to red, orange and yellow, shown off by the cool white of Japanese anenomes and the amazing white-blue of the autumn-flowering aconitum. Late-flowering clematis are taking over now and, if you pruned well in Spring, you may be lucky enough to get a fresh flush of delphiniums, columbine and early clematis now.
But if you tire of, or have no room for such brash and colourful displays, there are small and more delicately coloured plants to be grown. Autumn crocuses and cyclamen love to be grown under trees, pink or, even better, white nerines make a delicate show (they don't appreciate being moved) and gentians and polygonum are small but lovely. Asters, helianthemums and other daisies are all in full bloom now.
Not forgetting the importance of having scented flowers at the time of year when you are still enjoying the long evenings really pays off now, with tall tobacco plants, glowing out from the back of the border. Those are the ones that have the best scent. Many roses and the honeysuckle may still be flowering now.
As each group of flowers fade, chop the dying foliage away and compost it for next year. It will allow the remaining plants to look fresh for longer. Turn the compost heap and mix up a mulch ready for when the season draws to a close.
Don't get depressed - every gardener knows-"It'll be even better next year!"
