Winter-ready: planting ahead for spring

If we have to trust advertising the best time to start planting bulbs for spring is in September. This couldn’t be more wrong for spring-flowering plants; the autumn-flowering bulbs are an exception! The end of November up to half December are actually much better, providing you don’t live in a frost pocket where the ground is too hard by that time to get anything into the ground. So recently my closing ceremony for autumn was performed: I’ve planted my containers with bulbs and pansies to have something to look at through the winter months and into spring.

I cleared my pots of the summer plants, that had completely gone over (middle) and removed the uppermost 10 centimetres of soil in the process. I had already bought new tulips and daffodils (right) and trays of pansies (left). Sadly no orange pansies were available.

I plant my pots with bulbs in the “lasagne style”: first I remove 10 centimetres more of the potting compost and add in some dried cow poop pellets. At the bottom I plant the late Parrot tulips (left). These are covered by old compost into which I plant the early Triumph tulips. These are covered with a mix of old and new compost. Into this the daffodils are planted. As I found some crocuses had survived and were sprouting, I replanted these corms amongst the daffodil bulbs (middle). I then planted the pansies above the last layer of bulbs, making sure to fill the gaps with fresh compost. Only days in the ground, the first signs of winter have come down resulting in a light dusting of snow covering my pots (right). The pansies will brave even that weather with the buds not opening until it warms up.

Changing season, changing colours

Autumn is rapidly advancing with the leaves of deciduous plants changing from green to a rainbow of red orange and yellow before they fall to the ground. Although, many leaves are hanging on with the sunny weather of the past week and their changing colours can be observed close-up.

This vine against the garden wall (left) shows the green pigments being withdrawn from the leaves revealing the underlying red and yellow pigments. The result is varying combinations of greens, yellows and reds, especially showing the veins. Not only leaves are changing colour, as they ripen berries turn bright red colours to attract birds. In the middle the glossy drupes of a Hawthorn. This cherry tree is almost ablaze as the leaves have all turned a bright orange-red.

The leaves that have fallen are starting to carpet the ground. These yellow leaves of the Common Ash obscure the park path. The grass underneath the trees in the park are sprinkled with fallen leaves. The leaves of ornamental cherries (middle) show a range of colours, ranging from yellow via peach to deep red. The fallen leaves of this red-leaved Norway Maple show how the leaves actually become softer in colour, changing from a deep plum purple to a wine red and eventually a deep bronze.

This Oak-leaved Hydrangea, a coarse woodland shrub from the U.S., turns wine red and purple in autumn. The leaves sometimes don’t drop of but dry on the stalks, only to be pushed aside by the fresh leaves emerging in spring. In the middle the leaves of Persian Ironwood (Parrotia) showing all shades between yellow and deep red, often in a single leaf. In contrast the leaves of the Spindle bush (right) all turn a uniform candy pink, which contrasts sharply with the last deep orange berries.

Iris: a rainbow of blues

There are many species of Iris, some are bulbous others have rhizomes. All have colourful flowers in every colour imaginable, ranging from white to almost black, from pink to red to purple to lilac to blue, but also yellows and oranges. It is therefore very fitting that this genus of plants was named after the personification of the rainbow,  Iris, messenger of the gods. There are some 300 wild species within the genus Iris, and many, many hybrids have been recorded as these plants are universally seen as beautiful and symbolic.

Iris siberica, grows throughout eastern and central Europe into Asia, so not merely in Siberia as the name suggests. These plants are grown in temperate regions as ornamentals. In the wild the colour can vary from violet via dark blue to a pale almost white icy blue. They grow best on slightly moist meadows.

The bearded irises are a section of iris with -as the name suggests- a tufted hairy section on each fall. These examples are all hybrids known as Iris x germanica. This German iris is not a true wild species but a long cultivated descendent of several wild species. The large blooms come in every colour, but I prefer the blues. These plants like dry stony soil and lots of sunlight.

The variety in Iris is immense. On the left the lovely Iris laevigata 'Variegata'. This Water iris comes from Japan and will even grow in shallow water. The pale blue flowers of Iris x hollandica, commonly known as Dutch iris, are again beardless. These hybrids arose from crossing Iris xiphium (Spanish iris) with Iris tingitana (Tangiers iris). These plant require free draining growing conditions. Iris graminea grows from rhizomes and has violet blue flowers amongst the grasslike leaves. It is native north of the Mediterranean Sea  into the Caucasus.