May 2nd, 2023Glen, about the house

Autumn trees for dazzling colour
To many, the most beautiful time of the garden year is spring, the season
of re-birth, when trees and shrubs burst forth with fresh new growth, flowers
are blooming everywhere and air is fresh with their scent and the promise
of bright new things to come.
But to me, the most colourful and dramatic time of year is now, when
deciduous trees and shrubs everywhere turn on a dazzling display of coloured
foliage before shedding their growth and shutting up shop for the winter.
A drive in almost any direction at this time of year will provide you with a never-ending spectacle of varying shades of gold, brown, orange and red, and, if you are
thinking about adding autumn colour to your garden, you will see them at their best.
The hybrid, ornamental grapevine vitis vinifera, has been let grow this year, to form a garland of colour in the adjacent silver pittosporum tenuifolium.
Deciduous trees, although bare in winter, have several benefits other than
providing a once-in-the-year crop of leafy mulch. They also provide colour twice a
year, autumn leaves, then spring flowers and in some cases, fruit.
One of the most striking of the autumn foliage trees is liquidambar – an upright
conical tree with beautifully coloured, maple-like leaves that turn from a liquid gold
to a deep purplish red. They vary in colour because they are generally grown from
seed.
A hybrid form, L. Festeri, is a more compact, fast-growing tree of up to 10 metres
that will always turn a deep reddish-bronze shade and will always holds its leaves right
up until June.
One of my all time favourites, especially for smaller gardens, is the Washington
Thorn (crataegus phaenopyrum).
A beautiful, compact small tree that will grow to approximately five metres high,
this is a show off for most of the year for as well as its beautifully coloured red and
orange autumn foliage, it also has masses of small white flowers in the spring followed
in summer by clusters of small scarlet berries that will hang right through until the
following spring.
One of my favourites, a most useful and rewarding autumn-foliaged tree that will
grow under any conditions and provide interest and colour for almost every month of
the year is the golden rain tree, koelreuteria paniculata.
Apart from any other attribute, koelreuteria is the tree that inspired the Willow
pattern chinaware design so known and loved throughout the world and is a
beautifully shaped tree, growing up to five metres high.
During spring the tree is covered with long, gracefully sweeping panicles of fine,
golden-yellow blooms. In summer these form large seed pods that are themselves a
deep old-gold colour, these remain to colour the tree until winter. In autumn the
foliage attains a deep golden-yellow colouring before falling.
Koelreuteria is one of the most resistant trees to strongly alkaline soils and
will withstand hot, dry winds and long periods of drought. In fact, it will thrive
practically anywhere.
For larger gardens in almost any climate, where height or size are no problem, the
ash twins – the golden fraxinus excelsior aurea and fraxinus raywoodii or claret ash,
which, as its name implies, turns to a deep reddish colour in the autumn.
Either or both are so perfect for creating a shady retreat that they are used
extensively as street or park trees almost everywhere, indicating their ability to thrive
in almost any situation.
Got a gardening query? Email glenzgarden@gmail.co