THE windy Thursday a week or so ago saw most of the remaining leaves on our deciduous trees and shrubs pulled from their branches and thrown about the lawn and paths.

The garden has taken on a winter feel and shows its bare bones, unclothed by foliage with evergreens filling a few gaps, their dramatic darkness a welcome mass of green amid the skeletal trees.

Despite the best attempts of the weather last week, one shrub managed to resist the attack with a degree of success. This small berberis sits in a semi-shaded spot, sheltered from the wild westerlies by my neighbour’s evergreen hedge. It has been on fire for the past few weeks.

Somewhat overshadowed by larger more showy plants, it has hardly been noticed until other plants lost their glory and there it is, a burning bush lit by pale late sun low enough at this time of year to reach the branches.

The berberis family is a large genus of deciduous and evergreen shrubs that can be used in many areas of the garden.

Some make good hedges, especially the thorny species that will provide a dense barrier off-putting to unwelcome visitors. Others have beautiful flowers in spring that festoon the branches.

Berberis x stenophylla is a hardy evergreen hybrid with arching stems covered in orange flowers in spring, followed by black berries. It is often seen in landscape planting and is useful as a hedge where its tendency to sucker produces a dense, dark green thicket.

Berberis darwinii is anther evergreen member of the family, although less hardy than B x stenophylla. Discovered in Chili by Darwin, it has yellowy orange flowers followed by purple fruits and will sometimes have a second flush of blooms later in the summer.

The one in our garden is I think Berberis thunbergii, a deciduous Chinese species with rounded leaves on spiny branches.

The spring flowers are followed by small elongated fruit in summer; the crop was scant this year, but it is the autumn colour of this shrub which is so striking. The leaves have turned to shades of red and orange with splashes of golden yellow. A grand sight.


How to look after your Christmas tree


Gazette & Herald:

WE BOUGHT our Christmas tree last weekend and since it isn’t going to be decorated until our daughter comes home today, it has been left outside in a bucket of water.

Cut Christmas trees are like cut flowers: they will last much longer if given water and even longer when a few centimetres are cut off the bottom of the trunk when it is brought home.

Put the tree into water as soon as it has been cut so it can take up moisture and keep it somewhere cool if it isn’t going to be decorated straight away.

We wedge ours in an ordinary black bucket weighted with bricks, but purpose-made stands are available from most garden centres or DIY stores. However the tree is kept, water levels need to checked regularly and topped up. Remember to keep the fairy lights well away from the water.

We chose a needlefast nordman fir this year with lots of well-spaced branches to hang decorations. This type can be quite wide and will fill a good sized area.

If a neater tree is needed, the fraser fir is a good choice as the branches don’t spread as far. The supplier we got ours from has this species clipped as they grow so a dense, neat ‘Christmas tree’ shape is produced. The drawback is that there isn’t always room for long or dangling decorations.

Norway spruce is always a popular choice and nothing beats its scent, but the needles will drop very quickly and it is really worth following the instructions above to keep it hydrated.

Instead of buying a cut tree which will be disposed on the new year, it is fun to get a small living tree that will keep going for a few years.

My daughter and I grew some from seed that lasted for several years of being brought indoors for a couple of weeks and spending the rest of the time in the garden. Sadly, they died in the very cold winter a couple of years ago.

Growing a tree from seed can take a while before it is large enough to decorate, but a small tree can be bought ready to be used this year.

Beware of the wording on the label. Make sure it is a ‘container-grown’ tree. This means it has been grown from a cutting or seed in a container and potted on as it has got larger.

If a tree is labelled as ‘potted’ or ‘containerised’, the tree has been grown in a field, lifted, root trimmed and potted up with only a very small amount of roots. This type of tree is unlikely to keep growing.


Gardening TV and Radio

Sunday

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

8.30am, BBC2, Life In A Cottage Garden with Carol Klein. Carol shows how to harvest seeds and prepare the garden for winter.

9am, BBC Radio York, Julia Lewis.

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

2pm, BBC R4, Gardeners’ Question Time. Bunny Guinness, Anne Swithinbank and Christine Walkden answer questions from an audience at the Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst Place in West Sussex. (Repeated from Friday).

Friday

3pm, BBC R4, Gardeners’ Question Time. Chairman Eric Robson and his team of gardening experts present an 1860s-themed show from the Living Museum of the North in Beamish, Durham. Panellists are Chris Beardshaw, Bob Flowerdew and Christine Walkden.