Speckled Wood on RudbeckiaThe garden takes on a new dimension when the mornings begin with heavy dew. Spider’s webs and grass flowers glisten in the early light and other seed heads add to the picture. There are still many plants to enjoy – the perennial Rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’ has been in flower for weeks and still tempts Speckled Wood butterflies to the flat flowers. As well as being a beautiful plant in the garden, it does well in a vase, along with Michaelmas Daisies which are beginning to flower in the cutting garden. I always like to leave the seed heads on these for the birds through the winter months but am wary of seedlings that can result – they are mostly very inferior to the parent plants and I try to remove them on sight! One seedling that I am pleased got left alone is a Cotoneaster in the front garden. It (or more likely the birds!) placed itself next to a fence and grew up tall with gray green leaves and the most amazing clusters of deep red berries. I have trained it against the fence and it is one of the highlights of the next few months. The glossy berries hang on the branches long after the leaves have fallen and, along with the Myrtle (Luma) are a favorite with our local Blackbirds. The Myrtle has black berries after the summer show of fluffy white flowers and you would think that the birds would miss them as they do not stand out at all. Last autumn I could hear a rustling in the plant and caught a Blackbird in the act of eating them – the result is that we have found lots of seedlings all over the garden and many quite a way from the parent plant.
Our ornamental grape vine looks stunning this year and despite a major prune last winter before the leaves began to appear, has grown more vigorously than ever! The huge heart shaped leaves will be a picture of autumn color and the plant even has small bunches of grapes hanging on it – no good for wine production but I expect the birds will enjoy them if they grow to any size. Vitis really are one of the best climbers to cover an out building or grow through a tree. Trying to keep ours in bounds on a large trellis is quite a job but I can forgive the plant its exuberance for the reliable autumn colours even in our exposed garden!
Another group of plants that have good autumn color and berries are the coloured stemmed Dog Woods. The olive green stemmed Cornus sericea ‘Flaviramea’ in the front garden produced plenty of flat lacy heads of creamy white flowers which are now setting to white berries. The leaves will turn butter yellow before they fall to reveal the upright stems which are such a feature through the winter months.
I am looking forward to my next visit to our local Notcutt’s garden center – there are more spring flowering bulbs to buy and I will certainly be looking out for any shrubs that have autumn color or berries to extend the season in the garden for our own enjoyment as well as looking after the birds!
