Autumn delights!
Crab apples provide plenty of interest and are brilliant trees for small, family gardens
Autumn is always associated with fading away, with quietening; the garden becoming more peaceful, sinking down gradually. Yet outside Glebe Cottage it’s a different picture; there’s so much life, movement and energy.
For a start the garden is full of sound. Close your eyes and you can hear its music, the rustle of branches moving in the wind, the fluttering of leaves, the rush of grasses swaying backwards and forwards, the rattle of seed heads and stems.
Just as our ears are more sensitive to sound with closed eyes, scents and aromas always seem stronger when your eyes are shut. The caramelised sugar smell from the katsura trees pervades the air now, mingling with the smell of damp earth.
Open your eyes and there’s brilliance – golden leaves quivering in the low autumn sun, jewel-like dahlias scattered through the beds, vivid spots of colour that give you heart and seem to defy the season.
Our two acers, A. palmatum ‘Ōsakazuki’ at the foot of the terrace close to the house and A. japonicum ‘Aconitifolium’ at the foot of the garden, act almost like two book ends with all the autumn garden stacked and sandwiched between them. Both are glowing, rich rubyred and brilliant vermillion.
In between, a smorgasbord of colour turns the garden into a delicious feast. Perhaps the tree that best sums up the delight of the season is our crab apple, ‘Golden Hornet’. Its branches are laden with amber fruit. There must be thousands of them decorating the extensive branches of this magnificent tree.
We planted it nearly 40 years ago as a young sapling, not much taller than me but much slimmer! It came home, along with several
‘There must be thousands of amber fruits decorating the extensive branches of this magnificent tree’
other infant trees and shrubs, in the back of our old Land Rover.
Now the tree is mature, it has become a world of its own. In May, it hosts pollen parties for countless honey bees and other pollinating insects; from autumn onwards through the coldest months of the year, its fruit provides succour for numerous creatures, starting with our local blackbirds, swiftly followed by noisy flocks of fieldfares and redwings, and fallen fruit is devoured by small mammals. Bigger mammals take their share, too, to mix with blackberries and sugar to make jam and jelly! Regardless of the fruit, there are birds in its branches all year round searching for insects. It also plays host to lichens, mosses and an enormous, rambling clematis ‘Huldine’.
Crab apples are perfect trees for small, family gardens. They fruit from an early age and children love to collect the jewel-like harvest. As an added bonus, they efficiently pollinate other apples flowering at the same time, and provide year-round interest.
If space is really limited there are fastigiate forms (narrow and columnar) that’ll grow slowly upwards without ever creating too much shade. ‘Red Sentinel’ has pure white flowers and dark crimson fruit that often persist right through the winter. They’re big and juicy enough to use for decoration at Christmas
In Malus hupehensis, the ascending branches are covered in pink-budded, whiteflowered, fragrant blossom followed by a heavy crop of rosy-yellow crab apples.
Another way to save space is to grow a pendulous variety. ‘Elise Rathke’ or M. purpurea ‘Pendula’, which has relatively large flowers followed by substantial yellow fruit with a delicious flavour.
If you have more space, you can choose from traditional crab apples such as ‘John Downie’ or go for a purple-leaved variety with deep pink flowers and dark crimson fruit – ‘Jay Darling’ or ‘Lemoinei’ are just two of the numerous dark-leaved crabs.