Foliar Fireworks as a Fall Finale

Sorry it's taken us a while to get back to posting. Like most gardeners, there aren't enough hours in the summer to do everything, and it's been a busy, busy summer and autumn here at Baldwin's Nurseries. Things are quieting down now as we put away the stock for the winter and start thinking about next spring. We're still open in case you are looking for inspiration, gift ideas for family or friends, advice or one more plant to tuck in this autumn.

We've noticed some truly spectacular autumn colour this year, in many of the deciduous shrubs and trees. While Japanese maples are known for the dramatic colour display they put on each fall, they seem to be particularly fantastic this year, as well as late in dropping their leaves.

This red tipped gold leafed maple is one of ours grown from seed.

While this is an upright, green-leafed form that turns incredible shades of red, gold, pink and copper.

This beauty is the tricolour maple 'Butterfly', which is gorgeous from the the time its first leaf opens until the last leaf drops. 

It's not just the maples that have been putting on a show. The dawn redwoods, both the golden 'Ogon' and the regular green variety, turn wonder shades of copper, peach, gold before dropping their needles for another fall.

While the oak leaf hydrangea is marginally hardy for some parts of the province, if you can grow it, it's well worth nurturing a little just for the remarkable fall colour display. Even while pushing new, green leaves, the giant large leaves are richly tinged with burgundy, ruby, pink and bronze.

We are well known as being fond of ornamental grasses, many of which come into their own in autumn. The flower heads are wonderfully showy, but the foliage provides a great display as well--more subtle, perhaps, than the maples and sumacs and other brilliantly coloured showoffs, but lovely just the same.

Some of the magnolias are shimmering with buttery gold foliage. They don't all turn this rich shade, and sometimes the fall winds strip the leaves before they get a chance to change colour. Despite the winds we've all had this autumn, a clump of them have managed to dazzle visitors.

Visitors who have seen the foliage of the Cornus kousa in its luminescent fall finery are tempted to try a tree in their gardens next year. The flowers that come on in May and last for many weeks are showstoppers, but we think this end of season blaze of glory is pretty fantastic too, don't you?

Nothing false about falsecypresses

To continue with the evergreen love, we turn now to one of the most diverse and excellent genera in the ornamental plant world: the Chamaecyparis, also known as falsecypress. Sure, the genus name is a bit tricky to say, but these are excellent garden and landscaping shrubs.

Some become tall, stately, graceful trees, like the weeping Nootka in this photo...

Some have truly fascinating capsule like cones, which take two years to develop.

For those with small spaces, there are the excellent dwarf varieties, like this sculptured golden Hinoki.

And as with other evergreens, there are falsecypresses with a great variety of autumn and winter colour. 'Heatherbun' is a fascinating variety, with bronze to plum winter foliage.

Threadleaf chamaecyparis make a striking display at the front of a border or as specimen shrubs. Make sure to match your plant's mature growth to the proper site, as you don't want it overgrowing its area. There are compact forms that don't grow more than 3 feet tall, and others with a much larger mature height.

For something choice and handsome, look for the golden fernleaf falsecypress, C. obtusa 'Tetragona Aurea'. Its brilliant yellow summer growth deepens to a more bronzed gold in winter.

The odd little charmer Golden Sawara Pincushion grows in a mound about three feet tall and wide. It's a good choice for an alpine garden or dwarf conifer collection.

Some more dwarf chamaecyparis in pots, waiting for their new owners to come and find them. They resemble the graceful sculpture of potted bonsai.

As we start to put things away for the winter months, there is more and more fall colour showing up in the conifers and broadleaf evergreens at Baldwin's Nurseries. We're working most days, weather permitting, so do stop in and have a look around, and let our fall colour display inspire your garden plans for next spring. Thanks as always for visiting!

Fall & Winter Colour: Evergreens, Part 1

It's very gratifying to see more and more people getting excited over evergreens, both broadleaf and coniferous. Here at Baldwin Nurseries, we've long been fans of all sizes, shapes, species and colours of evergreens as the ideal plants for mixed borders, formal landscapes...you name it, there's an evergreen or 9 for the site.

There's more to evergreens than ever-green, too. Plant breeders have been very busy developing new varieties and cultivars, and many of the colourful evergreens have amazing fall/winter colours, making them ideal 4-season plants.

A photo taken in late winter or early spring from plantings at the front of the nursery property, when the snow had gone but nothing had begun to leaf out or green up yet. As you can see, there is a variety of colour from evergreens, subshrubs like heaths and heathers, shrubs like chamaecyparis, and taller trees including spruce, pine, and thuja.

From weeping standards to upright forms, from tiny dwarfs to towering trees, there's an evergreen for every site. This is a young columnar Scots Pine, which will have a very pillar-like, upright shape as it grows.

One of the most beloved of decorative evergreens is the Colorado blue spruce. This is new growth and older growth on 'Hoopsii', blue spruce, which to us displays the bluest of colour, but we carry other fine cultivars as well.

Juxtapose that blue spruce foliage with the glowing gold-bronze winter colour of 'Sunkist' thuja, and you have a brilliant display even on the bleakest of winter days. In addition, 'Sunkist' provides food and habitat for a variety of songbirds.

The swallows that visit here from spring to late summer like to promote the evergreens too, even if they are a bit camera-shy sometimes.


Junipers are a popular evergreen for sites that are 'high and dry', with lots of sun and moist soil with good drainage. There are many, many different species and cultivars, and it can get a bit dizzying trying to make a choice. Tall or creeping, standard or dwarf--please don't hesitate to ask us for suggestions and help when choosing a juniper.

Juniper 'Dream Joy' is a wide-spreader with creamy yellow new growth, contrasting nicely with the more mature blue-green needles.

J. ''Gold Star', also known as Bakaurea, is resistant to root rot and has a nice spreading but compact growth habit.
We like J. horizontalis 'Wiltonii', more commonly known as the blue rug juniper, better than 'Blue Star', which is prone to limb breakage from snowfall buildup. This form is also available as a standard.

One of the most underutilized evergreens we know of is the Microbiota. There's only one species in this genus, (Microbiota decussata) and it was unknown outside of the former Soviet Union until about forty years ago. We call it by the common name of microbiota, but you may call it Siberian cypress. What we like about it is its gorgeous plum-copper winter colour, and its tough-as-nails constitition. It's an excellent groundcover or edging species.

For something equally unique and unusual, we carry Thujopsis, a native of Japan with again, only one species in the genus. Think of this as a thuja (what many call cedar) on steroids: it has the similar scaly foliage, only larger, a glossy, brilliant green colour, copper-red tips in winter, and splendidly unusual, petite cones.

Don't just take our word on the variety of colourful evergreens--our friend Jill at Bunchberry Nurseries also carries a wide variety of evergreens, and has many planted out in her display gardens. You can also see excellent evergreens at the NSAC Rock Garden in Truro.

Next time, we'll talk about one of the most varied and wonderful of evergreens, the Chamaecyparis, or falsecypress family.

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.

Get High on Grasses

It's been really gratifying to see such a growing interest in perennial ornamental grasses in the past few years. If you haven't gotten into them yet, let's try to prove their worth to you!

To begin with, if you purchase the right kinds--those that spread by clumps, rather than runners--you won't have the nightmares of dealing with variegated ribbon grass/gardeners garters. Most grasses, such as blue fescue, Calamagrostis, the miscanthuses, Molinia, the panicums, and the Japanese forest grasses (Hakenechloa, above) are polite clump-forming perennials that stay where you plant them.

Secondly, there's a dizzying array of varieties, flower and foliage colour available today. As with other types of garden and landscaping plants, plant breeders are rolling out new varieties on a regular basis. This is Miscanthus 'Strictus', or porcupine grass, but there are now varieties with even more gold in their foliage.

Grasses are almost magical in the way they catch the light on their flower heads or the bristly spikes, called awns, that protrude from some flowers. This is one of the few hardy pennisetums, or fountain grasses, for our area, 'Hamlyn'.

Grasses aren't just green, either. They can come in a variety of colours, from gold or variegated with cream or yellow and green, to red tipped, to blues like Festuca 'Elijah Blue'.

Some grass heads are more subtle, and need to be examined and admired up closely, as with this switchgrass, Panicum 'Shenandoah'.

Here's a look at some of the varieties we have at Baldwin Nurseries, including Calamagrostis, Hakenechloa, Spartina, Miscanthus, and Panicum. Grasses are easy to care for, with some preferring moist soil, others being quite drought-tolerant. They tend to be untroubled by too much in the way of pests or diseases, too.


Many grasses don't begin flowering until later in the summer, and then hold their seedheads well into winter, providing winter interest for us, and a source of food for many types of birds.

Purple Flame grass, Miscanthus 'Purpurascens' has great autumn colour in its foliage as well as in its flower heads.

Miscanthus 'Huron Sunrise' was bred in Ontario by Martin Quinn, author of the very useful book 'Grass Scapes.' The book is a very useful handbook for anyone who wants to get into using ornamental grasses in their garden landscapes and who isn't sure where to begin.

Come on in to Baldwin Nurseries and see why we think you ought to get high on ornamental grasses too! We're closed on Sundays but open the rest of the week to serve your gardening and landscaping needs.