The first frosts are hanging back this year, like a child hiding behind his mother’s skirts. While this means my parsnips are still hiding in the ground, it is blessing us with a prolonged display of autumn colour.
And what a display there is. Among the sugar maples, lamp-yellow elms and rusty oaks, there are a number of striking and unusual plants which put on a stunning show in autumn.I have always been bewitched by smoke bushes (Cotinus coggygria), but at this time of year, it is easy to become fixated upon them. This bush is the straightforward species smoke bush, but if you want an even more spectacular fireworks display of leaves, grow ‘Royal Purple’, which has wine-coloured leaves turning carmine with the fall, or blue-ish ‘Grace’.
And when you see this plant puffing like a chimney with thick, cloudy flowers, or the morning dew hanging from these plumes, you will find yourself quite as delighted as I am.
