Larry Smith and the Riverside Gardens team talk all things pots, plants and pruning in their weekly gardening column.
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This beautiful autumn weather just keeps on rolling on, and it has certainly brought the best out in the autumn leaf colour of the deciduous ornamental trees and shrubs throughout our region.
Pin oaks, Canadian maples, Cercis trees, crepe myrtles, Japanese maples, ginkgo trees (and the list goes on), have all been putting on a magnificent display for the past few weeks, bringing another dimension of colour to people’s gardens.
Maples reflected on the lake.
A lot of these trees have been working hard right through the summer months providing shade, cooling their environment, creating microclimates for other plants to grow, cooling our houses and reducing the wind speed as it passes through them.
Yet here they are giving one last hurrah, a beautiful display of colour before they go into dormancy for a well-earned rest over winter.
While most deciduous trees are not native, with a little nurturing in their early stages, they do adapt well to our climate of cool winters and warm summers.
October glory maple.
It is a great time to be planting them out into your garden because as they go dormant, they will draw back sugars and starches from the leaf and store it all in the root system, giving the plants a quick root establishment into the soil they are being planted into.
In the coming weeks, they will also become available as bare-rooted stock, which will make them a little cheaper than potted plants, but you will miss that quick root development, and the trees will be at least 12 months less developed.
Now is also an ideal time to be choosing your deciduous trees as they put on their autumn colour, allowing you to see the different colours they turn.
So here are a few tried and proven favourites to keep an eye out for as you look around to see what catches your attention.
Japanese maple, Acer palmatum Dissectum Seiryu, is often one of the last trees to put on its full display of autumn colour, sometimes as late as mid-June, even though it already has some colour coming through.
It is an open, vase-shaped tree growing to about five metres high and wide.
The small fine, delicate looking leaf first turns orangey red to finish a deep fiery red before falling.
Most years the trees will hold their autumn colour for three to four weeks, and then drop it all at once.
Despite their delicate look, they are quite hardy, and will grow into a fine structured tree that throws a soft dappled shade.
Sango Kaku, the coral bark maple, is another one that grows well here, but you will need to give it a bit of extra care when young, as the light green slightly coarser foliage can sometimes scorch in the intense heat of summer.
Coral bark maples grow to about six metres high by five metres wide, with autumn colours of yellow, apricot and orange.
The bark of the new growth is pinkish during summer, intensifying into a deep coral red as the branches become bare in winter.
In golden coloured autumn foliage, it would be hard to beat the ginkgo trees, either the more common ginkgo biloba, or the Saratoga and Princetown Sentry varieties.
They all colour up in a beautiful deep gold and hold their autumn foliage for quite a while.
Cercis Forrest Pansy makes quite a different autumn display with its multi-coloured autumn foliage in tones of red, apricot and gold all on the tree at the same time before the leaves are discarded quickly over a short period of time.
The Forrest Pansy grows to around six metres high and wide, forming a small umbrella-shaped canopy.
It has bright pink flowers that hug the bare branches in spring before the deep purple heart-shaped leaves emerge.
Autumn Blaze Maple is one of the best hybrid-cross red maples for autumn colour.
From about early April, its traditional maple-shaped leaves turn a brilliant red, providing a stunning display early in autumn.
They are a nicely shaped feature or avenue tree growing up to about 12 metres high and are adaptable to a range of conditions, including our hot summers.
October Glory maple is similar in most aspects to Autumn Blaze, except it changes colour later in the season.
Acer Sensation is a quick growing sterile variety of the box leafed maple. We have a small avenue of these planted out in our Golf Gardens that have been putting on a beautiful display over the past few weeks with a progression of reds, oranges and yellows as the trees slowly go dormant.
October Glory maple.
Another one that is starting to put on a good display in our gardens is the plantation of crepe myrtles in the lawns opposite our wedding lawn area.
These are just starting to turn with a flush of deep red that will turn to a fiery red in the next few weeks.
This comes as a bonus after they have been flowering their heads off since January.
This is only a small sample of the amazing leaf colours that are around town and in the Garden Centre this autumn, so be sure to get out and have a look around at the wonderful displays before it’s all over and winter kicks in.
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