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Things to Do OCTOBER

Keep up to date in the garden with our monthly guide to key gardening tasks

PLANT Winter Containers Take inspiration from Danish garden designer Claus Dalby and create colour-themed pots to brighten up your autumn and winter garden

October is your last chance to plant up containers with winter bedding plants so they have time to establish before the cold sets in. Take a petal out of Danish designer Claus Dalby’s pot, and create show-stopping container displays by matching a variety of di‚ erent plants that are similar colours.

Claus, who is famous in Denmark for his gardening and writing, is now well-known across the globe thanks to his following on Instagram. Thousands swoon over his pictures of perfectly coordinated containers, fl owers and foliage. Here’s an autumnwinter take on the look.

Method

1 Gather together all the empty containers you can muster for your display. The more you have, the greater the impact, but make sure they are all of the same material – no mismatches.

2 Decide on your colour palette and select autumn-winter bedding plants that fi t into it. Plants here include cyclamen, skimmia, Camellia japonica ‘Volunteer’, ornamental kale ‘Nagoya Rose’, heuchera, carex and pink-berried pernettya. 3 Part fi ll the pots with soilbased compost for nutrients mixed with a little multipurpose compost to lighten it. Arrange the plants among the containers until you’re happy with the display. You can create a layered e‚ ect by raising some of the containers on stands or steps. 4 Plant and fi ll the pots with compost before watering well.

Checklist

O Burn or bin fallen leaves from roses to stop black spot spores from overwintering.

O Collect seeds by separating them from berries and storing in a cool place. You can then sow them in trays or small pots and place outside in a coldframe.

O Plant herbaceous perennials while the soil is still in a good enough condition for the roots to establish.

O Cut the tops of Jerusalem artichokes and asparagus down to ground level. Shred the old stems and add to the compost heap.

O Take cuttings of blackcurrants, redcurrants and whitecurrants. Take pencil-thick stems and trim to just below a bud so they are 20cm long. Insert into a cuttings bed or pot of gritty, soil-based compost until spring.

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Shrubs and trees that radiate autumn colour bring the season to a colourful close in the Hume’s garden.

1 0 C R O S S STREET

Garden City Gem

Tucked away in the ‘new town’ of Letchworth, this tranquil cottage garden celebrates autumn in the fading November light

By late autumn, many gardens are a little lacklustre as herbaceous perennial displays fade and deciduous trees are stripped back to bare bones. Not so at Renata and Colin Hume’s cottage garden, where variegated evergreen foliage, grasses and seedheads, clusters of berries and heritage apple trees infuse the borders with seasonal glory.

The couple bought the property 20 years ago attracted by the history and potential of the cottage and garden, situated on land believed to have originally been part of a large orchard. Renata and Colin’s cottage was one of the first to be built in the newly established Letchworth Garden City as part of a group of 131 dwellings created for the Cheap Cottages Competition. This project, which focused on the Arts and Crafts principles of practical design and good craftsmanship, set architects and builders the task of creating aordable properties for labouring families. The resulting Cheap Cottages Exhibition of 1905 attracted over 60,000 visitors and a temporary stop was created on the Great Northern Railway to transport Londoners to the town.

Despite this rich history, when Renata and Colin moved in, the sixth-of-an-acre garden was an unevenly sloping lawn, densely planted conifers and uninspiring narrow borders. Renata, a self-taught gardener and garden designer, had a plan as soon as she saw the plot. “I’ve always had good spatial awareness; I can see the potential in a space,” she announces. She applied this to building retaining brick walls with steps leading down through the centre of the garden. Paths constructed from old setts and upended tiles snake around the edges, making it easy to push a wheelbarrow from the top of the garden to the bottom. Once the levels were in place,

she began to shape the central section: “I like circles in a design so I started by just cutting the grass into a circle,” she explains. Eventually three circular lawns were established, creating deep borders and visually linking all areas of the garden.

The repeated circles and use of water in the garden, with a rectangular pond at the top and a wildlife pond replacing the middle lawn, create a sense of seclusion, enhanced by the surrounding tall laurel hedges that date back to the early 1900s. These hedges have also established a microclimate that allows many late-flowering perennials to thrive well into autumn. Presiding over the borders are magnificent apple, pear and plum trees that predate the cottage. Renata has added shrubs among these, which radiate late autumn colour through their vivid fruit, berries, stems and foliage. One glorious autumnal combination pitches the warm burgundy tones of Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’ against a backdrop of Rhamnus alaternus ‘Argenteovariegata’. Renata bought the evergreen rhamnus as a small plant with three stems, and over the years it has developed a canopy that she thins out every so often as she “likes it being more airy”. Above Spiky blue-green sisyrinchium flanks the path back to the house. Left Renata Hume’s simple layout of circular lawns and deep borders allows her to indulge a passion for plants. Below A white bench sits in a niche of box.

Renata adds colour with acers, both in containers and in the ground. Her favourite is A. palmatum ‘Osakazuki’ with its blazing autumn foliage: “In autumn, when the light changes, a shaft of sun illuminates it beautifully.” Colin agrees: “It looks as if it’s on fire.” Acer shirasawanum ‘Aureum’, which has the common name of the golden full moon maple, and Acer palmatum ‘Katsura’ also illuminate the borders at this time of year, adding soft yellows, burnt orange and pink tones to the autumnal palette.

In the woodland border, the foliage of Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’ fades to burnished yellow and orange, before falling to reveal vibrant orange stems. Renata began pollarding it several years ago and now the main stems explode into iridescent fireworks. Aware that the birds rely on the berries and fruit in the garden in winter, she has also planted elegant Cotoneaster ‘Rothschildianus’ with its creamy-yellow autumn berries and crab apple Malus ‘Evereste’, whose delicate red-flushed baubles make it one of her favourite trees. “The crabs stay on until the blackbirds have eaten them all: sometimes they last into the new year,” she notes.

Topiary adds structure with Pittosporum tenuifolium ‘Tom Thumb’ domes, box balls and clipped yew. Many of these plants are overshadowed by perennials in spring and summer, but as the summer display recedes they take centre stage and lead the eye through the garden. Occupying pride of place beside the wildlife pond is a cloud-pruned holly, Ilex x altaclerensis ‘Golden King’. Although the holly clouds create a stylish focal point, Renata admits that the tree was as much in charge of its shape as she was: “it has a mind of its own,” she says with a smile.

Perennials and grasses weave through borders, creating autumn colour and movement. Renata Top left Japanese anemones, cosmos and aconitum continue to flower late in the season. Top right Penstemon reliably put on a late show. Try ‘Garnet’ or ‘Sour Grapes’. Left Crab apples on Malus ‘Evereste’.

loves asters, from the white cloudheads of Eurybia divaricata to the purples of A . x frikartii ‘Mönch’, A. amellus ‘Rudolph Goethe’, Symphyotrichum ‘Little Carlow’, and vivid cerise Symphyotrichum novae-angliae ‘Andenken an Alma Pötschke’. Persicaria is another reliable autumn-flowering perennial, since it thrives in the moist clay soil. Renata has amassed an array over the years, including Persicaria runcinata ‘Purple Fantasy’, P. amplexicaulis ‘Firetail’, P. microcephala ‘Red Dragon’ and P. amplexicaulis ‘Alba’, all of which continue flowering until the first frosts.

The dreamy fluidity of the borders comes from grasses. Renata favours tall species like Molinia caerulea subsp. arundinacea ‘Skyracer’, Miscanthus sinensis ‘Malepartus’, Miscanthus sinensis ‘Kleine Fontäne’ and Panicum virgatum ‘Warrior’. These form screens, to which she adds drifts of shorter Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’, Hakonechloa macra ‘Albovariegata’ and Melica uniflora f. albida . Until there are new spaces she is experimenting with grasses like Stipa tenuissima in containers, alongside Echinacea purpurea ‘White Swan’ and Rudbeckia hirta ‘Prairie Sun’, neither of which enjoy the clay soil. “Either you accept that plants will quickly die in the ground and treat them as short-lived perennials, or you grow them in pots,” she notes pragmatically.

November is one of the most relaxing times to sit in the garden, watching the low autumn sun glinting through the arches that support two rows of young

apple trees. Renata uses the fruit from these trees as eaters and collects less palatable fruit from the veteran trees for juicing. She admits that the age of the trees worries her: “If the big trees disappear, the garden will change character completely.” To continue the legacy, they have planted new heritage varieties of apple, such as ‘Ipa’, used in Elizabethan times to line footpaths, with the tiny red fruits displayed as table decorations.

Drawing inspiration from the past helps Renata plan for the future. “I’d like to revisit old favourites that have been forgotten, and get involved in propagation again,” she muses. “Increasingly I want to simplify – my aesthetics have changed over the years.” It’s this combination of plant knowledge, skill and instinct that imbues the garden with personality. This is a real gardener’s garden and one that, over 100 years on, remains true to the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement. n

Top Next to the wildlife pond, a cloud-pruned holly and an elegant, container-grown acer. Above Sorbet shades of red-and-white flowered Fuchsia ‘Checkerboard’.

Plants of the Month NOVEMBER

Sorbus are a versatile group of ornamental trees and shrubs, renowned for their brilliant autumn colour and bright berries that last well into winter

Sorbus aucuparia

With their flaming foliage and colourful berries, sorbus make for wonderfully ornamental trees at this time of year. Native mountain ash or rowan (Sorbus aucuparia) is an extremely hardy small tree that grows on most soils, although it prefers acid conditions and often colonises inhospitable sites. Its bright scarlet berries light up exposed moorland in Scotland and Wales as the heather fades and the bracken turns russet. Lovely cultivars include ‘Apricot Queen’, which produces abundant, yellow-orange berries followed by fiery foliar tints of scarlet, purple and orange. ‘Copper Kettle’ has copper-coloured fruits that persist well after the leaves have fallen, while ‘Eastern Promise’ has flamered foliage and deep pink berries.

Sorbus ‘Joseph Rock’

One of the best-known rowans, Sorbus ‘Joseph Rock’ is renowned for its fabulous autumn colour and profusion of yellow berries. A small, graceful, round-headed tree, it also has an unfortunate reputation for being susceptible to fireblight, a fungal disease that causes the sudden death of certain woody Rosaceae species – sorbus being members of the rose family. This is more of a problem in rural areas, particularly where hawthorn is infected, but is rarely an issue in urban gardens. ‘Autumn Spire’ is a seedling of ‘Joseph Rock’ and has a slender, upright habit ideal for small gardens. With their feathery, pinnate leaves, sorbus tend not to cast heavy shade, and won’t smother underplanting when leaves fall in autumn.

Sorbus ‘Pink Pagoda’

IMAGES

SHUTTERSTOCK Sorbus pseudohupehensis ‘Pink Pagoda’ is one of the most popular pink-berried cultivars of all. This is a robust, small-to-medium tree with a head that can be oval or round, and lovely blue-green foliage with broader leaflets than many rowans. The pink fruits are freely produced in loose clusters as the leaves begin to develop warm, glowing, autumn tints, and its dark-brown shining twigs work perfectly against a backdrop of dark evergreens. Botanists have argued about the classification of this species and its cultivars; you will usually find it listed by suppliers as Sorbus hupehensis ‘Pink Pagoda’. You might also like fine-boned Sorbus vilmorinii, which bears pink, almost pearl-like berries on a small tree.