You see them in every gardening magazine – page after page of autumn glories, trees in every shade of red, orange, purple, gold and yellow. But sadly in Australia you need ‘two jumpers and a pair of long Johns’ winters to really get great autumn foliage – and even then, the chances are that your water-loving birches, maples and oaks will have died of thirst in summer’s heat…
Luckily there are some great drought and heat hardy trees around that will give you brilliantly coloured leaves all summer as well as autumn. The ones below will grow in any climate. In cold districts they’ll give a display of quite different autumn colours; in warmer climates you will be rewarded with a longer leaf and flowering season instead.
Coloured-leaf plums:
These are one of my favourites – yummy fruit plus stunning foliage. But do be careful – if you want fruit make sure you have a fruiting cultivar – it’ll say if it’s a fruiting tree or strictly ornamental on the label. If you don’t want the work (and mess) of squishy plums in summer, only buy the ‘flowering’ varieties that do not set fruit.
Prunus nigra has the darkest purple leaves. P. cerasifera ‘Pissardii’ is deep red with a hint of purple too. Look out for the rare P. x blireana too, with rich coppery gold leaves. All have bright pink flowers and make a stunning spring display, as well as their summer glories.
Coloured-leaf crab apples:
There are quite a few crab apples with copper, purple or red leaves. They all have fabulous spring flowers too, as well as hard decorative small fruit, from cherry size to glowing red yellow or multicoloured fruit the size of a small egg.
Crab apples are surprisingly drought tolerant once established – one of the hardiest trees you can grow. Birds adore both blossom and fruit, and you might even be inspired to make crab apple jelly – a lovely translucent thing you’ll never find in supermarkets.
Smoke Bush (Cotinus spp):
I adore smoke bush. Take everything I say about them with a grain of salt, because I admit my bias. But how can you not passionately love a tree that gives you rich purple, red or scarlet shaded leaves, a haze of red flowers – just like coloured smoke – all summer and into autumn, plus, in colder climates, a briliant change of colour each autumn. Even the trunks are beautiful being bare and shapely in winter.
My real adoration though comes from their hardiness. I have six smoke bushes now, some put in during the horror summer of 2003 when it didn’t really rain for eleven and a half months with gale-force bush fire winds. And not one of the little darlings turned up its toes, even with no watering from me (we had none to give them) and when even grevilleas were dying.
Smoke bush tolerates full baking sun or light shade; they cope with any soil, cold, frost, drought, heat… the only problem is the occasional too heavy panicle of blooms after rain, that can droop down till a branch breaks. But even that is pretty rare. The same panicles also make for stunning flower arrangements.
Smoke bushes can be pruned into a hedge, but are really best allowed to grow to their full 2 to 3 metre height by themselves. Look for Cotinus ‘Grace’ with it’s purple leaves and soft powdery bloom over them. Cotinus coggygria ‘Velvet Cloak’ is a darker richer purple producing rich red autumn colours. Cotinus c. ‘Golden Spirit’ is a brilliant yellow to rich gold, depending on how much sunlight it gets.
There are other smoke bushes too, green leafed or green shaded with a tinge of red. And all are simply magic. Who needs autumnal oaks and maples when you have brilliant hardy smokebush, crabs or plums in your garden?
