The beauty of Fallscaping: Berries and Foliage

While some people look at autumn with fear and loathing--because of our Atlantic winters on the horizon--we love the riot of colour found at this time of year. We at Baldwin Nurseries are wholehearted fans of the colours of autumn, when foliage erupts into blazing shades, when berries and seeds glow against leaf and twig. Let's show you some of the magical colours found in ornamental plants, both native and introduced. We'll start off with the flush of burgundy in this 'Popcorn' viburnum.

Not everyone can grow smoke bushes (Cotinus) successfully in Nova Scotia. In some areas, the temperature just gets too cold, and the winds are too brutal, to have these shrubs come through year after year. But many people CAN and do enjoy having a smoke bush in their plantings. Autumn really shows off the best of this shrub's attributes.
Our native oaks provide a gorgeous burst of colour, usually later in the season. They often will hold onto their leaves for a long time, right into winter, a process known as marcescence. Usually, younger trees and shrubs are more apt to do this than more mature specimens. Oaks, beeches, and hornbeams quite often exhibit marcescent behaviour.


The common shrub northern Bayberry (Myrica pensylvanica) has handsome leaves that turn marvelous shades of wine and burgundy...

...while the female plants display their waxy blue-grey berries, which are used to make bayberry candles by people, and enjoyed by various songbirds as a source of winter food.

Our native maples such as the sugar and red maple put on a spectacular show in autumn, turning our hillsides and streetsides glowing with carmine, fuchsia, scarlet, gold, bronze and crimson shades.

The native shrub Sweetfern (Comptonia peregrina) is an underutilized shrub in home landscapes. This is a great pity, because it's an easy care, hardworking shrub, with fernlike foliage that has a pleasing scent, and excellent fall colour.

Some of the hydrangeas, including the lacecap 'Blue Billows' and 'Preziosa', have excellent fall colour to their leaves and stems.

A nice selection of evergreens and hardwood shrubs and trees, glowing with a rainbow of shades. Not a flower in sight, but this is an attractive planting, isn't it?

One of the best native small trees or large shrubs, the amelanchier (various common names include shadbush, serviceberry, saskatoon, chuckly pear...) is an excellent choice for any garden. Early to bloom and leaf out, excellent fruits, and then this iridescent foliage colour in autumn. What's not to love?

Another tree that holds its foliage even after the colour has faded is the beech. Both the native and introduced species exhibit marcescense.

The native highbush cranberry is not a cranberry but a viburnum (Viburnum trilobum), a small tree or good-sized shrub with brilliant crimson berries. Songbirds eat these berries by late autumn. The foliage turns a handsome burgundy.

We carry a number of different cultivars of barberry at Baldwins, many of which have gorgeous fall colour. This is a common green form, which looks like foliar fireworks, and which is covered in bright crimson berries that show up beautifully after the leaves have fallen.

One of our hardy dogwoods, (Cornus sericea) with snowwhite berries against burgundy foliage.

All sumacs display excellent fall colour, although the most popular are the cutleaf sumac (shown here) and the new cultivar 'Tiger Eyes', which is even more brilliant. The berries of female sumacs are a good source of nutrients for songbirds.

Next time, we'll talk more about fall colour, with more of a focus on evergreens.

Looking for lateseason colour? We have answers.

Some call it fourseason gardening. Some call it fallscaping. We call it fun.

Now that the heat of August has been washed away by some much-appreciated rain, it's a perfect time to be working in our gardens. We don't know about you, but we're still planting things, dividing perennials, moving shrubs...and enjoying the late season blooms like these wellnamed silvergrasses (Miscanthus).

We talked a lot about grasses in our last post, but now is really the time when they are shining stars. Whether you like the tall, elegant varieties with their showy flowers like the miscanthus, or the more subtle, low-growing clumpers like Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa), there truly is a grass or ten for every garden.

Do you deadhead your coneflowers? If you do, you probably are seeing plenty of blooms in many of your varieties too. Check our display beds when you visit us: they are't perfect, but there's still lots of coneflowers showing their colour.

One of the most beloved of lateseason performers is the tall, or border sedum. There are many varieties, some with different colours of foliage, and many with different colours of flowers. The alltime favourite for many gardeners, of course, is 'Autumn Joy.'

Want to try something a little different in your fall-colour garden? How about Callicarpa, also known as 'beautyberry'. You can see why it's called beautyberry; after flowering a few weeks ago, our shrubs are now festooned with incredible purple berries,

We believe that plants with great foliage colour and texture are as important as flowering plants. This 'Plum Pudding' heuchera doesn't need to have blooms on it to look fabulous all season long.

How about these dwarf golden conifers? They don't 'flower' the way a lilac or a sunflower does, of course, but with gorgeous foliage like this, these dwarf chamaecyparis are allstars all year long.

Once the miscanthus begin to bloom, they genuinely sell themselves. Their graceful heads of silver, purple, red or rose-bronze flowers shimmer in the light.

Deadheading lavender will often prompt a nice later flush of flowers, and of course the grey-green, needle-like foliage is always handsome.

We love hydrangeas, especially the Paniculata grandiflora (PG) types with their longlasting panicles of cream to rose flowers. This one shows up nicely in front of a purple barberry.

We're open Monday-Saturday at this time of year, and are often up on the hill working with the plants. Just beep your horn, and someone will be down to help you as soon as possible. We look forward to helping you with your fallscaping ideas.