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4 minute read
The colours of Autumn
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Ornamental grasses Fruits of Rosa Moyesii Miscanthus Sinensis Cornus Alba Sibirica
Sue has lived in SW France for 15 years and founded the website French Properties Direct. Busy creating her second French garden, she wants it to be eye catching, filled with interest, and productive, regardless of the season.
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ADDING COLOUR
Now is the time to take stock of the current year and make plans for the next. A time for planting perennials and shrubs, and for ordering and planting bulbs which will flower next spring. It’s also the time of year for a spectacular fireworks display of leaves, stems and seedheads, made all the better because the sun is low, catching the display with a wonderful slanting light. Autumn starts, of course, with a clear up: cutting back some, but not all, of the perennials and annuals in your garden and composting them ready to provide structure and nutrition for your soil the following year.
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Perovskia Abrotanoides - mint family
CUTTING BACK
When cutting back plants in the autumn I find it pays to be very selective. Years ago we were encouraged to shear all perennials almost to the level of the soil and remove annuals, leaving a clean, brown expanse to overwinter. The winter frosts then killed insects and other pests, which had nowhere to shelter. However, as we now know, both good and bad “insects and pests” are all usually essential to a balanced eco-system.
Being very careful about what I cut back now helps to preserve the ecological balance in the garden, whilst encouraging a fantastic display of leaves, seed heads, architectural stems and berries which both feed and shelter wildlife, and look especially good when they catch that low sunlight of autumn’s shorter days. Plants which are ideal are grasses, perennials with a good structure or seedheads, and shrubs with wonderful autumn leaf or stem colour plus, of course, the seed capsules of roses such as Rosa Moyesii which has gorgeous flask-shaped hips. We grow the variety called Geranium which has a single flush of brick red flowers in the early summer but saves a bonus display of red hips for us through October. It’s a big plant, so it’s best to give it space.
GRASSES
Stipas succeed particularly well in our alkaline, clay soil. Stipa Tenuissima is a smallish, profusely seeding plant with billowing seed heads that live up to its common name of Angel’s Hair. The wonderful Stipa Gigantea reaches a meter high with arching seedheads which are painted gold by the sun throughout autumn and winter. It is big, but not invasive, and can be individually dotted around a grasses/perennials border with great effect. Another grass we have success with is the low, clump-forming Festuca Glauca. We grow Elijah Blue which creates tiny pops of blue-grey colour at the front of a dry border. Finally there is fountain grass, Miscanthus Sinensis, which adds erect fountains of leaves and plumes of seedheads as architectural emphasis. My own favourite is the variety called Malepartus. However, it’s worth remembering that grasses don’t like to be moved in the autumn, responding better in the spring when the soil is warming up rather than cooling down.
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SHRUBS
Great shrubs for a good stem colour are found in the Cornus family. I grow Cornus Alba Sibirica which drops its leaves towards the end of November, leaving fabulous red stems. Cut a third of it back to the ground each spring, just before the buds break, as this rejuvenates it and keeps a good supply of young stems which are the freshest red. If your soil is reliably damp there are lovely willows which can give yellow and black winter colour and then, for white, you have a couple of options. Perovskia is a hard working sub-shrub which deserves a place in dry French gardens. We grow Blue Spire which throws up arches of blue flowers throughout late summer but then has the added bonus of lovely white stems if you resist the urge to cut it back in the autumn. Prune it in the spring as it flowers on the current season’s growth. The other reliable whitestemmed sub-shrub is an ornamental bramble, Rubus Cockburnianus (pronounced coburnianus). This is a stunner and I know it would thrive and look wonderful in the right place but I can’t bring myself to deliberately plant a bramble in our garden. If you decide to take the plunge you can keep it in check by cutting it back to the ground each spring.
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You can see more of Sue’s gardening advice at www.thelocalbuzzmag. com/meet-the-bloggers and in our online articles section.
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