A blaze of ravishing red
Often we forget that flowering cherries aren’t just for spring – many have wonderful autumn colour, too. You could grow Sargent’s cherry, Prunus sargentii, just because it’s an attractive small tree with a spreading crown and pink spring blossom. But that’s only part of the story. After fading into the background in the summer months, as the nights draw in its leaves turn bright orange and red, almost as if lit from within. If Japanese maples are too tricky for you, try this!
Another easy-to-grow plant guaranteed to give great autumn colour is the Virginia creeper and its cousin Boston ivy. Both are vigorous deciduous vines, which have the useful habit of being self-clinging, so you don’t need to put up trellis for them. There are quite a few different varieties but my favourite is the Chinese Virginia creeper, Parthenocissus henryana, which has rich, velvety green leaves with smart stripes down the middle of each leaflet, turning brilliant red in autumn.
One unmissable plant for autumn’s ‘red list’ is the heavenly bamboo, nandina ‘Fire Power’. It’s unusual for being an evergreen with great autumn colour. As it gets colder, the top leaves turn deep red and berries form, which are so bright they’d make a postbox look pale. Heavenly bamboos are great plants for small gardens as they don’t need much pruning, they don’t get too big and they look good all year round.
If you fancy going native then one of the best autumn reds comes from the spindle tree, Euonymus europaeus. It grows wild in chalky areas but is amenable pretty much anywhere that’s not too wet or shady. Try ‘Red Cascade’ for a truly eye-popping display. It spends spring and summer blending into the background, then suddenly around this time of year it goes all out in one of the most spectacular displays of colour of any hardy plant. The leaves turn bright red and it bears the most incredible neon pink and orange fruits. You couldn’t make it up! These gaudy fruits hang on the tree like miniature Christmas decorations for months after the leaves have fallen.