Autumn colour offers a welcome final burst of colour before winter sets in. GINA PARKINSON surveys the changes in her York garden.

OCTOBER cannot be allowed to pass without the customary discussion of autumn colour. The turning of the leaves is such a part of the British year, a welcome final burst of hues and shades that remain in our memories during the cold months that follow.

The photograph shows our lovely smoke bush that takes on gorgeous reds and yellows, golds and greens before the foliage finally drops.

The tree has suffered a little this year, with two large branches dying at the height of summer. The leaves dried and shrivelled quickly and we recently removed the affected parts, leaving an eccentrically shaped tree.

Despite the odd contours, it looks much better and we can enjoy its seasonal display while planning the reshaping that will need to be done in the spring.

Autumn colour is not only seen on trees and shrubs; although they give the most dramatic displays, there is plenty going on in beds and borders as herbaceous perennials take a final bow.

Hostas are especially good and even if their leaves are finally succumbing to mollusc attack, they go down fighting with foliage turning buttery yellow.

This show is so fragile, the first frost will turn them to mush, but while the weather stays mild and damp they will soldier on, slowly collapsing into a pale gold heap.

Autumn colours are enhanced by contrasting shades from late flowers, none better than the lavender blues of certain Michaelmas daisies.

Clumps of these plants grown among grasses and fading herbaceous perennials look delightful, their colour complementing that of the plants around.

There is also a pleasing echo of spring colours, blues of forget-me-not and pulmonaria and yellows of crocus and daffodil. They will soon return.

 

• In the vegetable garden

THE sweet corn was uprooted and put onto the compost heap last weekend after a productive summer.

Sweet corn is a tender plant and responds to temperature rather than length of day, so to get a good crop we need a long hot summer.

This can never be guaranteed but I have put small sweet corn plants into the veg patch each of the three summers we have been here with varying results.

The first summer was warm and the plants did well, there simply weren’t enough of them and our family of five devoured the crop within a couple of days. Last summer was a complete washout and we nothing to harvest.

This year has been the best so far with 18 or so sweet corns cut from the dozen plants put into the garden.

As summer progresses, the sweet corn becomes starchy and rather unpleasant to eat. Once this happens it is over for another year and time to pull up the plants.

In their place I have put in leek plants that have been waiting a while for a home.

The summer leeks are almost all eaten so it is good to have another crop to look forward to. I hope they haven’t gone in too late.

 

• Weekend catch-up

THERE is still time to put wallflowers in the garden. Wallflowers are biennial plants that are grown from seed in the summer of their first year for flowers the following spring.

At this time of year they are sold in bundles of bare rooted plants dug up from the fields they have been grown in during the past few months.

The wallflowers will need to be planted as soon as possible after purchase and may be looking rather sad.

Put them in a bucket of water to give them a good watering and to stop the roots drying out.

Then separate into individual plants and put into their flowering position.

They prefer a sunny spot and will perk up after planting to form neat bushy plants able to cope with whatever winter throws at them.

 

Gardening TV and radio

Tomorrow

8am, BBC Radio Humberside, The Great Outdoors. With Blair Jacobs and Doug Stewart.

8.30am, BBC2, Gardeners World.

Monty Don deals with slippery garden paths.

9am, BBC Radio York, Julia Lewis.

9am, BBC Radio Leeds, Tim Crowther and Joe Maiden.

2pm, BBC R4, Gardeners’ Question Time. Panellists Matt Biggs, Bob Flowerdew and Anne Swithinbank answer questions from the audience at Leicester University and Botanic Gardens.

Friday

3pm, BBC R4, Gardeners’ Question Time. Chairman Eric Robson is in Bedfordshire where the audience quiz panel members Chris Beardshaw, Pippa Greenwood and Bunny Guinness.

8.30pm, BBC2, Gardeners’ World. Monty Don makes plans for winter displays and spring colour in the garden. Rachel de Thame visits the world’s largest spring garden and Esther Rantzen shows Joe Swift her garden