Bright ideas if you haven’t the foggiest
Berries are more important than ever this month, particularly this year, as favoured by the perfect late spring we had. There are masses of fruit on hollies, Cotoneasters, Pyracanthas, crab apples and rowans for the birds to feast on this autumn and winter.
Seed heads are also particularly attractive now. The best examples include the ballooned Nigella pods and fluffy brown Liatris heads. Autumn foliage is still abundant on ornamental shrubs such as the fiery Spiraeas, and Chaenomeles which also produce the amber-coloured quinces.
Patio tubs boast ornamental cabbages and violas, along with silvery variegated Ivies, all bringing a blast of colour close to the house. Building a new rockery is a great project to get stuck into this month, with plants to use for all year interest – not least of all the winter varieties such as Snowdrops and Sempervivums which will keep your horticultural passions fired up through the darkest and coldest days.
Why not put it on the slate?
THIS IS an ideal month for rearranging rockeries, but if you haven’t got one, it’s also the perfect time to build a new one from scratch. It is best if you use an open and sunny position, preferably in view of the house as many rockeries make good winter features.
Whether you are building a rockery against a wall or as a ‘free-standing’ island, there are a few basic rules – First of all, consider its size as top soil is very expensive and a smaller rockery is easier to maintain. Very often, larger rockeries can demand more effort than meets the eye.
As for materials, there is a bewildering range of rocks and aggregates available at large garden centres. If you fancy something different, there are some unusual chippings on the market made from recycled glass in shades of blue, pink and purple. There are also many different types of stone chippings which include white gravel, beach mixture, purple slate, green slate and pink grit. Plant-wise, here are a few suggestions for winter interest:
• Black grass (Ophipogon Nigrescens) is the only plant reputed to have truly black leaves which are rather grass-like showing up well against a pale aggregate.
• Sempervivum is often known as the cobweb houseleek as its succulent rosettes of leaves are bound in a fine spiders web-like silk. The leaves are also tinged purple.
• Snowdrops need no introduction or description as their delicate nodding white blooms are sure to liven up any rockery.
• Sedum Khamschaticum has very low cushion-type rosettes of turquoise-blue leaves all year round.
• Winter heathers will provide clusters of tiny white or pink bell-shaped flowers and if sheared over in spring, will last for years without becoming too large.
NOVEMBER presents an ideal opportunity to plant new hedges, particularly native varieties such as beech, hornbeam, yew, hawthorn and quick-thorn.
Dig a trench around 40cm deep and mix in some well-rotted manure or garden compost with added bonemeal. Plant as soon as possible around 45cm apart and give them a good drench.
It maybe an idea a few inches of growth off the more vigorous hornbeam and hawthorn to encourage bushiness.
Tovey’s Tips
• If you have a mower that collects the grass well, set the blades high and run it over the lawn as often as you can to collect leaves. Many mowers will shred the leaves with their blades and the debris will make compost much faster than raked leaves.
• On the subject of compost, turn heaps regularly and add some coarse shredded material to open up the mixture. This will help to aerate the compost and give the worms some extra room to do their busy autumn work.
• Old fashioned shrub roses can be pruned back by a third to an outward facing bud and then left through the winter and spring. All other shrub varieties should have their tallest stems taken back to prevent wind-rock and will then need pruning in the conventional way in February and March. New bare root plants can also be planted now.
• Net over ponds to prevent the autumn leaves falling in. This especially applies to small ponds where toxic gasses can build up as a result of the sugars in the leaves. These are harmful and can be fatal to fish.
• The wet autumn weather has continued to encourage weed growth and these may well become pretty established by spring if they are not pulled out. This applies particularly to couch grass, willow herbs and buttercups which are all producing vigorous roots and runners at this time of year.
Quince-essentially brilliant!
CHAENOMELES, otherwise known as the Japanese Quince speaks for itself as far as the autumn fruits are concerned which are both spectacular and, of course, perfectly edible. But this shrub also has two other superb qualities – the first being dazzling golden autumn foliage and the second being the showy red, pink or white flowers studded on the bare branches in February or March. These shrubs look best when fan-trained on a sunny wall.
Decide your shrubs
Some types of popular deciduous shrubs really do come into their own this month, even when most trees have shed their colourful leaves. Many of the varieties I’ve listed below also seem to have both better overall vigour and autumn colour, if they are pruned radically hard back in late winter:
Spiraea ‘ Gold Flame’ turns its golden leaves a vivid orange, which fall to leave many brown seed -heads for the winter.
Cotinus, otherwise known as the smoke bush for it’s effective frothy sprays of tiny flowers in summer, produce wine red leaves, which turn a translucent scarlet in autumn. Hard pruning will forfeit the flowers, but one could prune back half the stems each year.
Ceratostigma has many small bright blue flowers throughout the autumn and the pale green leaves turn increasingly bright red as the first frost arrive.
Berberis Thunbergii produces either green, purple or golden-yellow leaves for the summer which turn yellow, red or orange respectively. These shrubs also produce small yellow flowers in late spring, followed by red or blue autumn berries.
Want to know weather to go out in November?
NOVEMBER brings a fairly conflictive period of weather with cold, dry high pressure based over Scandinavia, at times battling with low pressure over the Atlantic or the near-continent. The coldest spell, which may even bring snow, should turn up in the third week. After a dry start to the month, the second week should be milder and wet and this also applies to the fourth week when gales are possible.
A border reprise and non-Christmas trees...
IN DECEMBER, we will be revisiting our suggested border, but this time applying it to the summer season with a generous amount of bulbs once again. We will be starting a small monthly series on trees during the winter and their increasingly important values.
See you next month!
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