Your Garden By JUDE COSTELLO
AUTUMN colour what beauty! With these few colder mornings we have had over Easter, the colours will intensify in the deciduous foliage.
One thing I really love about The New England – and Armidale in particular – is the changing colours. One week it will be an intense pink cerise and the next a deep burgundy, then gold, etc.
When planting deciduous trees, shrubs and climbers, their autumn colours are just as important as their form and colour in spring and summer.
The placing of this colour palette is so vital in creating maximum effect.
You may want to put a rich gold tulip tree or desert ash in among the multicoloured pears or chinese pistacias and a red leafed oak or a claret ash.
Some other gems are parrotias, maples, nyssas, oaks, elms, poplars and the deciduous conifers such as taxodiums. Another group are actually evergreen conifers but their foliage changes in winter, some turning orange brown or purple like the cryptomerias.
Climbers can be among the most spectacular, with ornamental grapes, virginia creeper and boston ivy really starring, Gostwick church is a fine example that immediately comes to mind.
There are quite a number of shrubs that are worthy of planting for autumn colour alone, aronias, burning bush, some old roses, viburnums can be very colourful. Some of these also have lovely fruit, hips and berries which look great as the foliage falls.
Unfortunately, there are a couple of berry producers which have become a weed in the countryside so best not to grow, for example some privets, cotoneasters and pyracanthas.
