Carol Klein is loving the colours that the new season brings
All the talk in the garden at the moment is about autumn colour – it seems to make everyone happy!
‘Even motorway embankments are set ablaze by flames of brilliant crimson’
Just when you thought it was all over for the year, there are shrubs, trees and even a few herbaceous plants that startle with their colour or amaze you with wonderful fruits or berries.
Cotinus coggygria, the smoke bush, is a deciduous shrub, but its foliage is in fine fettle right into December. Its leaves are round and in varieties such as ‘Grace’ and ‘Royal Purple’, their colour is rich and dark. As autumn bites, purples and bronzes change to rich red, making an eye-catching feature of the whole shrub.
Other shrubs and trees hang on to their foliage until the last minute, too.
Even non-gardeners know about autumn colour. It’s unavoidable. In the heart of the city, chestnut and plane, acer and cherry colour wash the cityscape with their glowing foliage. Those who look down are just as aware of it as those with their sights set higher, as leaves tumble down creating carpets of colour on the pavement. In Japan, the terrestrial display is appreciated as much as that of the branches themselves.
All the talk in the garden at the moment is about autumn colour. Even on normally silent train journeys, on beautiful, golden days, some travellers can’t help but mention it. It seems to make everybody happy. Even motorway embankments are set ablaze by flames of brilliant crimson created by our native dogwood, Cornus sanguinea, in its autumn guise.
It’s all as a result of our deciduous trees settling down into their winter state and abandoning their leaves. During spring and summer, the chloroplasts within the leaves constantly combine sunlight, water and carbon dioxide to produce sugars to feed the plants and release the oxygen – which enables life on earth.
Fall colour is synonymous with trees and shrubs. Some
of the Asiatic sorbus colour up brilliantly. Sorbus ‘Joseph Rock’ is an exceptionally striking tree with upright branches which give it a neat silhouette after its gloriously red leaves eventually fall to the ground. Its amber-yellow fruits, borne in great bunches, persist though, untouched by the birds until well into the new year. But right now its autumn colour is the centre of attention, joining in the joy of the season.