Johannesburg - Autumn is here. Cold nights have arrived and leaves are starting to turn yellow.
The sun’s rays are less fierce, the light is softer, and the garden becomes a more mellow and enjoyable place in which to work and relax.
This is the season when deciduous trees and shrubs produce their impressive display of fruits, berries and colourful foliage.
Now is the time to increase the autumn component of your garden by adding plants that look their best this season.
Plants for leaf colour
Leaf colour of deciduous trees can vary from year to year, and even the same species can produce different intensities of colour. Make sure when buying a tree or shrub that you select those that show the richest colouring.
Trees that have good autumn colour include liquidambar with maple-like autumn leaves of red, burgundy and orange. Liriodendron tulipera (tulip tree) is a large tree with yellow-green banded-orange cup-shaped flowers and leaves that become yellow in autumn.
Smaller trees with attractive autumn colouring are flowering cherries with leaves that turn bronze and red, the dogwood (cornus) with leaves of red-brown, and Pride-of-India (Cape myrtle) with yellow and orange leaves.
Indigenous
Combretum erythrophyllum (river bush willow) has a willowy growth habit and foliage that becomes yellow and red in autumn. Searsia chirindensis can be grown as a shrub or small tree (6-10m) with shiny reddish-brown fruit and reddish autumn leaves.
Acers, with their graceful form, are popular trees for gardens large and small where they can feature as specimens or planted in groves.
Another attractive small tree that can be grown singly or in a grove is the lavender tree (Heteropyxis natalensis) with lavender-scented foliage that turns red as the weather cools. It will need protection from frost.
Not all autumn foliage is richly coloured, but can be equally pleasing as seen in an avenue of plane trees with their autumn leaves of yellow-brown forming a canopy overhead. The pin oak with its attractive pyramidal shape has autumn leaves of dull brown. The swamp cypress has a pyramidal shape with green fern-like foliage with a bronze tinge in autumn.
Hydrangea quercifolia is a rounded shrub that has spring green foliage, panicles of white flowers in summer, and large oak-shaped leaves that turn rich mahogany and remain on the bush well into winter before falling.
Viburnum opulus has white-tiered flowers in spring, bright red fruit and reddish-purple foliage in autumn. Nandina domestica (heavenly bamboo) and the dwarf form “Pygmaea” are clump-forming shrubs with bronze fern-like leaves in autumn, deepening to red in winter.
Autumn berries
There are many trees and shrubs that bear colourful berries and fruits at this time. Search your nurseries and garden centres, and visit local botanical gardens, where you will find old favourites and discover new berry-bearing plants to give interest and attract birds to your garden.
Crab apples (malus) are ideal for small gardens, recommended for their size and shape, for their pink and white blossom in spring, red fruit in summer and attractive autumn foliage. The arbutus (3-6m) is known as the strawberry tree because of its scarlet fruit that follows the drooping panicles of white flowers.
In this season of plenty, evergreen pyracantha and cotoneaster cultivars such as P. “Orange Charmer” and red “Santa Cruz”, whether grown as a hedge or shrub, have bright berries that provide food for birds. Both are hardy to frost. Cotoneaster horizontalis is often used as a groundcover because of its herringbone horizontal branches. Pale pink flowers are produced in summer, followed by red berries.
Mahonia aquifolium (Oregon grape) is a striking frost-hardy shrub with an upright growth habit, large compound leaves and racemes of yellow flowers in spring, followed by blue-black berries.
Grape vines are grown for their fruit, but also put on a pleasing display in autumn when their leaves turn gold and red. Parthenocissus tricuspidata (Boston ivy) and P. quinquefolia (Virginia ivy) are also part of the grape family, with foliage that becomes deep red to burgundy in autumn.
Fallen leaves are a wonderful bonus for gardeners to be used as a mulch around shrubs where they will eventually decompose and enrich the soil. It is only necessary to remove leaves on lawns, paths, steps and around seedlings.
These leaves can be added to the compost heap or stored in a wire enclosure where they will in time become leaf mould.
TIPS
* Plant spring-flowering bulbs without further delay in well-composted soil that is well-drained, with a handful per square metre of superphosphate worked in. Plant in large drifts, large bulbs 10-15cm apart and small bulbs 3-5cm apart. Mark the area where they are planted with a layer of light-coloured sand to avoid digging them up.
* Petunias provide splashes of colour for many weeks. They need a sunny position and well-drained, composted soil. Choose compact varieties for windy gardens, multifloras for rockeries and beds, and mini and cascading petunias for containers and hanging baskets.
* Prune back scented geraniums (pelargoniums) to encourage bushy growth. Dry the leaves for potpourri and to scent cupboards. Take cuttings of Marguerite daisies (argyranthemum), pelargoniums and fuchsias and root in river sand. Once rooted, move to individual pots containing potting soil.
* Pockets of indigenous babiana, freesia, ixia, lachenalia, sparaxis (harlequin flower) and tritonia with their jewel-like colours are most effective planted in groups in rockery pockets and in containers. Soak the claw-like tuberous roots of ranunculus and anemones in water for an hour or two before planting. Plant in groups, in a sunny position in well-drained, composted soil. - Saturday Star