Create a spectacular Autumn garden
A beautiful time of year in Australian gardens, autumn creates a lush, vibrant world of colour to signal winter is on the way.
Shrubs and smaller plants can change colour with the seasons and flowers can bring splashes of colour at different times of the year, but it's the deciduous trees that truly explode with vibrant colour in our autumn gardens.
Choosing autumn plants for your garden
Choosing trees for the garden landscape is dependent on which varieties will grow well in your area. Keep in mind that deciduous trees will only change colour if there is a marked change in temperature accompanying the change of seasons. This tends to happen in areas in the southern half of the country, with particularly strong changes occurring in hilly or mountainous regions.
Pragmatic considerations such as the height and overall size of the tree also come into play. Obviously you won't want to plant something that will grow 20 metres high in a small courtyard.
Japanese maple trees
Possibly the most spectacular autumn tree is the Japanese maple (Acer palmatum). These have lovely shaped leaves that turn a beautiful crimson in autumn, before dropping to produce a soft, vividly coloured carpet on the ground.
Small autumn trees
There are a number of cultivars of these - most are smallish trees, growing no higher than four or five metres, with a gentle spreading shape.
Crepe myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica) is another lovely medium-sized tree that turns orange-red in autumn. An added advantage is that crepe myrtles have a lovely smooth, light-coloured bark, which is exposed during winter once the leaves have fallen.
Large autumn trees
Some larger garden trees to consider are the liquidamber (Liquidamber styraciflua), which has a number of cultivars that turn different colours, from scarlet through to yellow; the sugar maple (Acer saccharum), familiar from the Canadian flag; the gingko (Gingko biloba), which has beautiful fine leaves that turn yellow in autumn; and honey locusts, (Gleditsia triacanthos), which grow to around 12 metres and turn a bronze-purple colour when the weather turns cooler.
Birch, ash and cedar trees
Birches (the Betula family), ashes (Fraxinus) and cedars (Cedrela) are other large deciduous trees with a number of different varieties, all of which bring their own hue of autumn colour to Australian gardens.
Each is suitable for growing in most Australian conditions, although it's a wise idea to ask your local nursery or horticultural consultant which trees might best suit your specific conditions.
Contact a landscape designer and make the most of the beautiful autumn season in your garden:
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