Autumn is Well and Truly on the Way...

Autumn is well and truly on the way and our garden is changing almost daily as plants begin to color up for one of my favorite times of the year. Mrs McGregor and I love to visit gardens and parks for a good walk and to see nature’s own firework display as it unfolds over the next few weeks. As well as leaf colours there are bare, coloured stems and the scent of winter flowering shrubs to enjoy, along with the smell of mouldy leaves and damp mornings.

One of my favorite autumn scents is the candy floss smell given off by the Katsura tree (Cercidiphyllum japonicum) as the heart shaped leaves turn to smoky pink and orange and begin falling to the ground. The scent hangs in the air on still days, often some distance from the tree and has us searching for the source! Unfortunately our own garden is neither large enough or sheltered enough to support one of these beauties, but we do have a Parrotia (Persian Iron Wood) whose glossy deep green leaves change to rich red and orange late in the season before falling to reveal mottled gray bark. I am hoping that our plant, which has been in for six years now, will produce some flowers in the New Year. They are clusters of red pom-poms that appear on the bare wood through the winter.

The garden is still full of interest with Phormiums (New Zealand Flax) adding texture to the borders and looking more striking than usual now that their color is intensified by the cooler temperatures. Penstemon are still full of flowers and I will leave them to take their chances through the winter now that I have rooted cuttings tucked into the green house as an insurance policy for next year! The Sedums have been amazing this year with ‘Herbstfreude’ (‘Autumn Joy’) carrying pink, dinner plate sized flower heads for weeks. These have now darkened to rich carmine red and the myriad of insects and butterflies have finally lost interest in them having feasted on the rich nectar that they provide.

Late flowering Clematis viticella are smothered in flowers and the deep wine red ‘Kermisina’ looks particularly good scrambling through our ornamental Vine that is beginning to change color now.

This week I have been busy planting up more containers with winter bedding plants and spring flowering bulbs. I have planted Tulips on their own, three layers on top of each other in terracotta pots. These are left in a sheltered part of the garden with some netting over the top to try and prevent mice from digging them up! Once they begin to shoot next spring, I will start to water them and move them into borders to fill gaps as well as placing some where we can see them from the house. I love Tulips but most do not last longer than one year in our garden so I replant each autumn – perhaps it is those pesky mice to blame!