Autumn Leaves
And other simple seasonal pleasures
30 November 2024
By: James Lennox
Once upon a time, all respectable houses were subjected to a thorough spring clean. The rugs were beaten, dull metal was polished back to shiny life and the sofa was pulled off the wall to reveal a year's worth of accumulated debris.
It also used to be the case that, roughly six months later, the garden would be given its annual once-over. Shrubs would be hacked back, leaves would be raked, perennials would be chopped down to the ground and all the tools oiled, sharpened and then ceremonially hung up for the duration.
Both are perfect examples of the Big Bang approach to life. Bite off a sizeable list of chores, go at it hell-for-leather and then forget all about lifting a finger for the next 12 months. That modus operandi might work in the house (I mean, do windows really need cleaning more than once a year?), but out in the garden, the little and often school of thought reigns supreme. A little light weeding here, a spot of watering or dead-heading there - these are tasks that, like the poor, are with us always.
But there are certain jobs that I reserve for autumn alone, garden rituals specific to this time of the year. Lest we forget, ‘to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.’ And it can be immensely satisfying when the weather co-operates and the long-anticipated activities all go off without a hitch. The past month has been glorious on the whole - misty mornings, clear blue skies and barely a breath of wind.
Perfect bonfire weather, in other words. No, I'm not one of those immaculately dressed Victorian gardeners decked out in tweeds, ties and flat caps who slashed and burned everything in sight the moment it had outlived its usefulness or no longer merited its allocated spot. But how else to deal with the dreaded buddleia prunings, the clippings from the bay hedges and the ever-encroaching brambles? None is suitable for the compost heap or for adding to the leaf-mould pile.
Let's be honest: when the conditions are just right and you've not got any washing hanging on the line, tending a bonfire for a couple of hours with a flask of coffee (or something stronger) to hand is one of gardening's greatest primitive pleasures. A time to unplug, leave the modern world and its carbon footprints behind and re-connect with one's inner caveman, normally kept well under wraps.
Once I've got all the death and destruction out of my system, I turn my attention to what really matters - watching the leaves colour up. Americans have a term for it, leaf-peeping, and I get to do it for about 6 weeks solid without leaving home. And this past autumn has been the finest for colour that I can recall. Was the cooler, wetter summer responsible? Was the dry, bright, unusually mild autumn behind it? Or is it simply that my adolescent trees have now got the bit between their teeth and will put on this sort of show every year from now on?
First off the blocks this year were the oranges - the Parrotia persica, the Nyssa sylvatica, the aronias, amelanchiers and a multi-stemmed Acer cappadocicum ‘Rubrum’. A relatively brief prelude to the main season, they blazed across the hillside and in the woodland while all else was still an emerald green. Even the orchard lit up briefly with the suckering sassafras turning as many different shades as its leaves have different shapes.
Next up were the yellows, with tulip trees, honey locusts and a cluster of birches grabbing all the attention. The latter, Betula lenta, always catch me by surprise. I grew them from seed - and ended up with far too many. But birches are a clubbable tree, enjoying each other's company, looking best in batches. It's an unassuming species, quietly biding its time, without startling white bark or distinctive leaves, waiting to turn the most eye-catching pure buttery yellow, visible from miles away. Literally - no visitor to the village could miss them lighting up the hillside in late October.
Of course it's the reds that are such a novelty in Europe - our own native species don't seem to go in for anthocyanin in a big way. Thankfully, there are plenty of North American species to fill the colour void. Whether it's the flaming pillar-box red of Acer x freemanii ‘Autumn Blaze’ or the towering inferno that is my lanky juvenile Quercus coccinea, the boring browns and underwhelming russets of the indigenous offerings look suitably resentful of their more glamourous cousins.
One of the justifications for planting quite so many sweetgums (Liquidambar styraciflua) was that, in a good year, they might add a splash of colour. In Britain, where summers are cooler and wetter, they’re not a massive success. Great claims are made for various cultivars - but no guarantees are given. Perhaps what they really need is a good dose of global warming. If so, the future might very well be brighter for them there.
No such concerns here at La Corolla (colour-wise at least). The normal advice when planting an avenue is to avoid seed-grown trees. Too much variability and not enough uniformity. I happen to prize character above conformity. Which is just as well as each of my two dozen trees is a law unto itself when it comes to bark texture, leaf size and fall colour. I'm quite taken with the resulting kaleidoscopic effects, but a purist would no doubt find fault. No dull monotony here, instead there's every shade under the sun from orangey-yellow to scarlet to crimson to purpley-black. All technical terms gleaned from the RHS colour charts, you understand.
Last of all, once the excitement on the hillside and in the woodland is starting to wane, my dear old Ginkgo biloba decides to join the party and steal the limelight. It's one of the first trees I planted here and I selfishly planted it right outside the library windows. Watching it turn into a column of molten gold in the last week of November is a very private pleasure. I should probably sell tickets when it coincides with an azure sky and each individual leaf is picked out in detail.
I savour them all while I can. A cool night, a blustery shower or just the passage of time will see them end up on the ground before long. But there’s a great consolation – there are few pursuits more uplifting for the soul than simply kicking your way through a pile of rustling leaves. Yes, some are raked off the paths to save the grass beneath and others are plucked from the borders and beds to give the perennials a bit of breathing space. But, in the absence of strong winds, most stay exactly where they land, allowed to work their slow, silent magic through the long winter ahead.
