I AM the first to admit to railing against a glorious autumn after having endured a dreich, drizzly, midge-infested summer. But that’s Scotland for you. The best remedy is to seize the moment and enjoy what autumn has to offer.
Every season is different. We all love the fresh promise of spring, the fulsome beauty of summer, the mellow maturity of autumn and even the stark elegance of winter trees. These changes are all reflected in food from the garden, the colour and shape of plants and how the sun enhances all this.
When growing your own, you not only indulge your palate with amazing food, but every season also has different treats for you. Fresh crispy cabbages, perfect for coleslaw, replace tired old runners and courgettes. Supermarkets really do have a lot to answer for when they entice you into buying parsnips and sprouts in summer or tasteless imported tomatoes and sweetcorn in winter. Forget about bland, boring all-year-round sameness and go for seasonal goodies.
The same applies to the shape and colour of the plants we grow. Spring is the time for fresh green shoots and stems, pure white snowdrops, bright yellow daffs and the strong blues of chionodoxa or Anemone blanda. And, apart from highly vulnerable crocuses, many early flowers are sturdy enough to withstand strong winds, while one of my favourites, Scilla sibirica, nods obligingly to repel the rains.
And the full bright colours, the pinks, bright reds, deep blues and golds of summer, are as out of place in autumn as a wrinkly old blond. The other day, I was tempted to snip off the buds of my rose, Teasing Georgia, whose yellow blooms are starting to look a bit off. I wish it had the grace to bow out like the splendid Pink Bouquet rambler at the end of the bed.
In another part of the garden, the blooms of Kathleen Harrop are living on borrowed time, but I’m afraid the last few flowers of Lythrum salicaria Blush have bit the dust. Baby pinks are perfect for August but are now verging on the octogenarian. That’s why pale magenta and baby blue autumn crocuses are out of place and a multicoloured splash of silky-petalled winter pansies looks ridiculous.
Let’s instead enjoy Keats’s season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. Flowers and shrubs should be bold and strong so as not to be overshadowed by the rich, mellow colours of autumn foliage. The deep pink semi-doubles of my Anemoytne huphensis Prinz Heinrich happily hold their own near the deep calming burgundy of a Viburnum carlcephalum.
But there’s nothing peaceful about Sedum spectabile Autumn Joy. I often like to stretch my legs and check out the plants I’m writing about. While writing this column, I have been bowled over the sheer number of bumble and honey bees, Red Admiral butterflies and hoverflies combing its velvety pink blooms. Talk about bees round a honey pot.
Sedums show how plant shape and design changes over the seasons. Just as spring snowdrops nod to expel rainwater and peonies risk their spectacularly bursting blooms to summer squalls, lots of autumn flowers, such as my sedum, go for flat open tops.
The large family of autumn daisies, the asters, heleniums and rudbeckias, are open-topped. This not only attracts vital pollinators, but makes the most of the ever-weakening sun.
These low light levels produce some of the most spectacular garden vistas. On a sunny autumn or winter day I find this light pretty challenging when chain sawing or strimming, so simply stop and enjoy the light streaming almost horizontally through the trees. Wet autumn leaves glisten in the sun, and when they’ve fallen, the dying sun beautifully defines the stems and outline of the trees.
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