Add a touch of bronze
Bronze is a difficult colour to pin down, and it’s not a common one in plants. The leaves of many deciduous trees pass through bronze on their way from green to brown, but few can really be said to be bronze. Heucheras are one example, and now’s an ideal time to plant them, especially if you’re trying to establish them in dry shade. A single generous watering after planting should see them through at least a few weeks, if not longer, depending on the weather. Try ‘Bronze Beauty’ or ‘Caramel’. These plants make great ground cover and their flowers are attractive to bees and other pollinating insects.
As the sun gets lower in the sky and leaves begin to fall, suddenly bark becomes much more noticeable in gardens. And what better example than the paperbark maple, Acer griseum. It’s a beautiful small tree, like a petite version of our field maple but with the most amazing bronze-brown bark that peels away gradually as the tree grows. The ends of those papery ‘peelings’ catch the light,
seeming to glow with a rich toffee colour all of their own on misty October mornings.
Grasses and sedges provide wonderful bronze tones to the autumn garden. Look out for the lovely orange sedge Carex testacea in garden centres. Despite being a hardy perennial it’s sometimes sold cheaply alongside bedding plants and if you can pick them up in small pots for a couple of pounds, you’re onto a winner! The bronzeleaved form of its relative Carex comans is also worth growing for its unusual colouring. Both look amazing next to winter pansies and violas, giving contrast both in form and colour. I love teaming them with blue/purple and orange violas, with miniature daffodils such as ‘Minnow’ planted beneath.