I've finally worked out the answer to a question that's puzzled me for decades: which is the most stupendous, totally magnificent tree or bush for autumn foliage?
The answer: "It depends."
The first great variable is weather. This autumn should be a fabulous one. (No guarantees). Low temperatures trigger the chlorophyll that give leaves their "green" to leach out, but if it doesn't get too cold other substances on the leaves keep being produced, like anthocyanin, which helps give a rich red colour, or carotenoids that give orange. Cold but not too cold plus moist soil will give your trees deeper, richer colours. The better the growing season, the better the colours.
A summer season like the one we've just had should mean a stunning autumn showing - unless we get early heavy frosts, which will turn most of the vibrancy brown, or too much wind which will blow the leaves off. Usually I'm pretty good at predicting the weather, or rather, letting the flora and fauna predict it for me. This autumn I just dunno.
If we're going to have a short autumn, the best trees for colours are those that have already turned colour early, like pomegranates, maples, crab apples and other apple trees. Crabs are usually bred to give a deeper gold, but an apple orchard can look stunning. Ordinary apples look best en masse. Apples are also hardy - in drought you'll still get autumn colour, just earlier and for not as long.
The latest tree to turn here is the native melia or white cedar, one of the few native deciduous trees. It turns bright yellow here in early winter, long after the other trees have dropped their leaves, followed by bright red berries that the parrots love. We don't just get the berries, but the red and green of parrots cavorting on the branches too. But you'll still get colour and berries if your area is prone to early hard frosts.
We now get into dangerous territory as every passionate gardener or tree lover has their favourite autumn leafed tree, and will staunchly defend its superiority. Oaks of all kinds, for example, have a strong case for being supremely fabulous in autumn when they line streets or avenues. Sadly the leaves tend to stay on the tree long after they turn brown, and once they fall they are tough and heavy and turn into claggy brown lumps that need to be vigorously raked away. Lombardy poplars also make stunning avenues, but they lose leaves in dry years, and grow so tall that the leaves seem to keep blowing till they find roof gutters to clog up. On the other hand, any tall deciduous tree will be a gutter clogger.
Maples are high on my list, including sugar maples (yes, you can tap them for maple syrup in this climate in late winter, though you probably won't get commercial quantities.) We have a dwarf Japanese maple that in the best years (ie just now) looks picture perfect, naturally neat and sculptural and totally rich, vivid red. It turned colour literally overnight, a gift of the season when I looked out the window the next morning.
Would you prefer to get your autumn colours from fruit trees, so you get tucker and beauty? The best contenders are persimmons, bright orange with leaves that drop neatly around the tree, and stay orange for a few weeks too, so you have a bare branched tree hung with orange fruit, surrounded by a circle of orange leaves, which is hard to beat. Sadly ornamental grapes are flagrantly spectacular in autumn, but don't give fruit.
Pomegranates give you butter yellow leaves in autumn, then red and yellow pomegranates that will last till you or the parrots and other birds eat them. Their leaves are small, so don't make too much of a mess. Medlar trees' yellow almost seems to glow. Admittedly medlars fruit stays dull brown after the leaves fall, a bit like dangling wombat droppings, but their display looks far prettier than it sounds, almost as if sculpted. Medlars are one of the hardiest fruits for cold climates.
A friend won't accept that any tree can beat the Chinese tallow tree for autumn colour. I'm grieving for the Himalayan pears we had to chop down - they were getting too massive, but their sheer size meant we had incredible autumns down that end of the garden, with shades of yellow tinged with red in a hundred different shades. We really do need more names for colour, especially those produced by Himalayan pears .
Then there is our ginko, which sensibly lost its leaves in the second year of the last drought, stayed bare for four years, then grew green leaves as soon as we had lots of rain. Ginko grows tall, but not proportionally wide. There is something slightly magic about a ginko with its curiously shaped leaves in autumn. Ginko is also symbolic of long life.
My favourite large bush/short tree for autumn beauty in a small garden is smoke bush. It's summer leaves range from green to mauve to purple or even rich red depending on the variety, but their autumn colour out-glows anything else in the garden. Even the common hydrangea can look gorgeous in autumn, especially if you grow enough of them to make a decent display.
If you're in a warmer climate, liquidambar will give you shades of yellow, red or even purple in a coastal garden or even one in the subtropics. Persimmons give colour as far up as Brisbane too, but not as richly nor or as long as you'll get in the Canberra region.
Then there's claret ash - it's leaves really do become claret colour. Chinese pistachio is one of the fastest growing autumn splendour trees, and gives its bright orange to scarlet leaves in warm as well as cold climates.
Wander around the streets of Canberra in the next few weeks or, hopefully, months, and you'll see tens or even hundreds of others, shrubs as well as trees. Thankfully you don't need to own a garden, or even tend one, to delight in the sudden beauty of a Canberra autumn.
There are only a few years in any gardener's life that give growth as luxuriant as we've had this year. Try not to miss a minute of this autumn's magic.
This week I'm not doing any of these, as I have a book to write and one to edit, plus visitors, but a dutiful gardener would:
- Plant broad beans, spring onions, winter radish, long-keeping onions, and peas - I've found the leafless twining ones give a much larger harvest.
- Fill a garden bed or several pots or baskets with advanced seedlings of winter and spring blooming annuals like primulas, pansies, heartsease and Iceland poppies.
- Pick up any windfalls that might help fruit fly over-winter or let the chooks do it for you.
- Keep an eye on the weather forecast for looming frost and make sure you've picked the pumpkins before the frost damages them.
- Gather up any large but still green tomatoes - they'll mature indoors over the next month or two, and still taste excellent. Hopefully cherry tomatoes will keep ripening outside for a few weeks.
- Indulge in autumn fruits: pomegranates, lemons, early limes, olives, late figs, quinces, Granny Smith and Pink Lady apples, passionfruit, tamarillos, chestnuts, walnuts, early persimmons, grapefruit, guava, feijoa, strawberry guava, late strawberries, autumn raspberries, melons, and pecans. If you don't have them, plan where to plant them now;
- Make crab apple, Himalayan pear, medlar or quince jelly for hot scones and pikelets (or even just good toast) through winter, and keep a store of empty jars for winter marmalade.
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