The last blast of colour

LEAVES are turning and are providing us with a beautiful last blast of colour before they fall and disintegrate into a sodden mush of brown.

The shades seem to have been different this year, more yellows and bronzes and fewer of the fiery reds and oranges associated with the end of the season.

The small tree Amelanchier in our front garden has come into its autumn glory, with foliage turning yellow and brown with the occasional red splash. It is a few years old and around two metres high, so the dark trunk and stems are beginning to form a good strong framework that contrasts beautifully with the leaves as they make their final bid for attention.

It can grow 4.5m/14ft or more in time, but for smaller gardens it can be kept smaller with careful and regular pruning in winter. I have seen it grown as a hedge that rivals hawthorn in providing attractive foliage and white spring flowers.

The blossom of Amelanchier is more fleeting than that of the hawthorn and the berries are fewer, but its spring and autumn foliage is more spectacular.

Although at the moment it is the autumn hues of the Amelanchier that are of immediate interest, it does have a long season of usefulness in the garden. It begins in early spring with soft buds that open into a mass of small white flowers and coppery foliage in April and May.

The flowers are delicate and last a couple of weeks, nodding in the slightest of breezes before falling in the strong winds we sometimes get at that time of year.

This short season shouldn't be off putting - why do they have to stay around for weeks? Their fleeting nature makes them all the more desirable and something to look forward to in the cold days of February and March which, the weather forecasters tell us, are gong to be extreme next year.

The new foliage is a lovely soft pinkish bronze that slowly darkens to green as it matures. By the end of May, the branches are covered in leaves with the small beginnings of red berries that will turn to black in the summer.

Through June and July, it takes a back seat in the garden but makes a good support for the summer-flowering clematis. Then we come round to autumn and the changing of the leaves and once again the tree is a focal point in the garden when other things are dying back.

A much smaller plant in our back garden has also been providing interesting colour this past couple of weeks.

Platycodon grandiflorus 'Mariesii' is a herbaceous perennial with deep blue flowers that open from swollen buds, which give rise to the common name of Balloon Flower.

It is not seen in many gardens but is well worth growing for its unusual flowers that are borne from June to September and the foliage that briefly turns buttery yellow then brown, before the whole plant dies back for the winter.

It is an easy plant to grow, thriving in most well-drained soils and sun or light shade. Propagation can be tricky but is best done by sowing seed in a cold frame in spring from ripe seed pods collected the previous autumn. The seedlings are fragile, so several seeds should be sown to allow for failures.

More on heathers...

A COUPLE of weeks ago I wrote about Erica gracilis and using it with cyclamen to create an autumn container.

Jean Julian, the honourable secretary of The Heather Society, contacted In the Garden to recommend another, hardier heather to use in the garden instead.

Erica gracilis is a South African or Cape heather and although hardy to 5 degrees C, it won't necessarily survive a British winter.

This can be unnecessarily disappointing and off-putting to gardeners especially since, as Mrs Julian points out, there are other better ones to choose from.

The ones she recommends are the bud bloomer forms of Calluna vulgaris, which include white budded 'Alicia' and 'Melanie', pink 'Anette', red 'Alexandra' and 'Aphrodite' and crimson 'Amethyst'. 'Theresa' is pink with yellow foliage, while 'Sandy' is white with yellow foliage.

According to David Small of the Heather Society, they are usually easily available from garden centres in September and October and are sometimes trade marked with the name Garden Girls.

Most flower from August to December or January with the flowering season prolonged by a cold, dry autumn. They need well-drained acid soil and sun or partial shade and are best pruned in March.

The bud bloomer form has been popular in Germany for many years and was developed from a cross between Calluna vulgaris and a moorland calluna, which had grown with unopened flowers.

Breeders in that country had been looking for a hardier replacement for Erica gracilis which was often used on All Saints Day when people traditionally put flowers on family graves.

Calluna vulgaris 'Melanie' was one of the early varieties to be developed and is the one coloured with vegetable dye to provide the garish plants I commented on in my previous column. This plant will return to its more attractive white in later years.

For more information about heathers visit:

www.heathersociety.org

Gardening TV and radio

Sunday, October 30

9am, Radio York, Down To Earth with William Jenkyns. (Repeated on Wednesday at 8pm).

9am, Radio Leeds. Joe Maiden and Tim Crowther.

2pm, R4, Gardeners' Question Time. John Cushnie, Carole Baxter, Bunny Guinness and chairman Eric Robson help gardeners from Dumfriesshire with their horticultural problems. Meanwhile at the GQT garden Pippa Greenwood advises on choosing potato varieties, Bob Flowerdew looks at how to create an efficient bonfire and Anne Swithinbank reveals how to grow hippeastrums.

Friday

8pm, BBC2, Garden School. The students are subjected to strict lessons in design with inspiration from the gardens of Beth Chatto.

8.30pm, BBC2, Gardeners' World. Monty Don and his team assess how the gardens at Berryfields have fared over the past year and look at planting tulips.

Saturday

8am, Radio York, Gardening Phone-in with Nigel Harrison. The telephone number for questions 0845 300 3000.

Updated: 16:37 Friday, October 28, 2005