EP294- 10 Super Plants For Autumn Colour In An Irish Garden. Capturing The Magic Of Autumn Foliage In Your Garden.

Autumn's fiery display has arrived slightly earlier this year in Irish gardens, with drought-stressed trees and shrubs responding to recent winds and rain by transforming their foliage into spectacular shades of red, orange, and gold. This timing creates the perfect opportunity to witness these botanical performers at their peak and introduce them to your own garden landscape.

This episode reveals my carefully curated list of ten exceptional plants for autumn color, divided between shrubs and trees, each selected for reliability, visual impact, and often, multiple seasons of interest. Among the shrubby standouts, discover why Cornus kousa 'China Girl' was this year's Bloom festival sensation, how Euonymus alatus delivers weeks of vivid red display, and which varieties of Berberis offer tough, reliable autumn color even in challenging conditions. For larger spaces, learn about classic performers like Liquidambar (now available in compact forms for smaller gardens), the shelter-loving Japanese maples with their quintessential deep reds, and my personal favorite, Quercus rubra (Red Oak), which develops increasingly magnificent displays as it matures.

Beyond leaf color, we explore plants offering autumn berry interest, from spectacular Pyracantha walls to reliable Cotoneaster displays. You'll discover which plants combine multiple seasons of appeal—spring flowers, summer structure, autumn color, and winter interest—to maximize your garden's year-round visual impact.

The message is clear: don't just admire these autumn stars in other gardens or nurseries. Now is the ideal planting time to secure these performers for your own landscape. Garden centers are currently showcasing these seasonal beauties, including exciting new varieties perfect for smaller spaces. By investing in autumn-interest plants today, you're ensuring your garden will celebrate rather than surrender to autumn's arrival for years to come.

For those following our perennial grow-along, send your questions about germination, growing conditions and next steps to info@mastermygarden.com, and join our YouTube live session on Monday at 8pm for comprehensive answers as we nurture the next generation of garden stars together.

Chapters

• 0:12 Welcome to Episode 294
• 2:27 Early Autumn Color This Year
• 3:14 Top Five Shrubs for Fall Color
• 8:36 Five Stunning Trees for Autumn Display
• 16:15 Notable Mentions and Berry Interest
• 18:17 Perennial Grow Along Update

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:12

how's it going, everybody? And welcome to episode 294 of my garden podcast. Now, this week's episode, I'm recording it a few days ahead of it going live and it is absolutely lashing rain here and has been, you know, for for a couple of days. And this week we're covering the subject of autumn color in the gardens. And autumn color typically comes end of september, you know, and and onwards from there into october. But this year, I guess, because of the really really dry summer and you know, trees and plants maybe craving a little bit of water, leaves maybe started to turn a little bit earlier and then combined over the last kind of two weeks with some really high winds and quite heavy rainfall. You know that wintery conditions or sort of autumny conditions are sort of coming a slight, slight bit earlier and you can see that colour coming and, as I say, it feels to be a little bit earlier. But every year at this time when these phenomenal colours, it's one of my favourite times of the year. But when these phenomenal colours come through, you know, into the forests, into the gardens across the country, it's always at this time that you spot things and you say that looks gorgeous, but it's a brilliant time now to see them in all their glory and then to act and actually get them into your gardens. And you know there's quite a lot of plants. A lot of plants will put on, you know, some version of autumn colour. But the ones that we're going to go through on the list today and maybe have a few others that will get notable mentions, but these are, you know, really, really good and particularly known for their autumn color. Some of them actually have multiple seasons of interest and that makes them even better, of course, for your gardens. So you know they might have early season flower, potentially berries, leaf color. You know they might have early season flower, potentially berries, leaf color. You know various periods of interest.

Speaker 1: 2:07

As I say, I split the list kind of into 50-50. Half of them are kind of shrubby shrub to large shrub type plants. And then there's five that are, you know, out and out trees and then there's five that are out and out trees. But even within that list of out and out trees, I've seen some garden centres this week posting videos of new varieties of particularly one type and that are going to be more suitable for smaller gardens, and I'll mention those. It's a brilliant time of the year to get these plants and get them into your garden because, as I say, you will see them in all their glory at this stage of the year. To get to get these plants and get them into your garden because, as I say, you will see them in in all their glory at this stage of the year.

Speaker 1: 2:51

So the list um, as I said, 10 plants, with some notable mentions outside of the 10, and split roughly into kind of large shrubs and into trees, five, five of each. And number one on the list was definitely the star of the show at Bloom this year. So a lot of the show gardens featured this plant. A lot of the nurseries that were selling at Bloom also had a lot of this plant, quite big ones there, and it was in full flower at the time and that was Cornus Cusa, particularly China Girl. That was the one that was, you know, was there a lot at bloom and it looked phenomenal at that stage, but it's also a plant now at this stage of the year. So China Girl is a really good one, and there's some other really good varieties as well and they're now starting to show their autumn colour. So again, it has multiple seasons of interest, which makes any of these phenomenally good for your gardening that they're not just a one-trick pony at this time of the year. So the first one on the list is cornus coosa, china girl, and what a brilliant plant that is, as I say, star of the show at bloom, in terms of there was a lot of them there seem to be used in a lot of the show gardens and it just looked particularly well at that time of the year. And now, of course, it has its really good second period of interest.

Speaker 1: 4:14

The next one on the list is one that looks brilliant, has phenomenal autumn color, slightly tender you just have to be careful where you put it. Definitely don't put it anywhere windy and it's Nadina domestica. Um, a really good one there is is firepower. It's a really good variety, really vivid, vivid reds and but nadina is just slightly doesn't like wind anyway for sure, so will do well in most places, but generally doesn't like wind, so just watch out for that one. But indeed, a domestica, uh, brilliant, brilliant one. Uh, firepower is that is is a good variety. A couple of other varieties as well, but that particular one is a really, really vivid, um, really vivid coloring at this time of the year.

Speaker 1: 5:04

Next one on the list is one that I have spoke about on the podcast before and it is you know. This is really its period, it's you know. While the others have multiple periods of interest, this is one that stands out completely at this time of the year. I've seen some of the garden centres I think Altamont plants maybe, and some of the others were posting videos about this plant during the week out plants maybe, and some of the others. We're posting videos about this plant during the week.

Speaker 1: 5:26

It's euonymus atlas and that's a brilliantly colored, a little bit like the nadina bigger leaf, but absolutely vivid red colors at this time of the year. And you know it's easy to manage. Hardy, will grow in most places, doesn't grow too big, so it's easy enough to manage, as I say, in a smaller space or whatever. But a really standout coloring at this time of the year lasts for a couple of weeks. You know somebody, some of the colorings on some of these are very fleeting in that you'll only get them for a very short period of time, but this one does last for a little bit, so you get really great interest out of it for that period of time and it just stands out. It will catch your eye for sure, and that's a brilliant one.

Speaker 1: 6:09

The next one is has multiple seasons of interest, to be fair to it, and doesn't typically feature at this time of the year, but it has some really really good, really good interest at this time of the year as well. And it's cutinus, or the smoke bush, and there's a particular one called uh, cutinus, uh, crogeria, cogyria, have, and it's royal purple and that's a brilliant one at this time of the year. So it's the smoke bush, looks the. The reason it's called the smoke bush is it gets these flowers that kind of raise above the canopy, the leaf canopy of the plant, and but they're kind of feathery and they look like as if it's smoke raising off the off the plant and that's where the smoke bush comes in. And, as I say, not typically seen as one for autumn color, but the leaves turn at this time of the year and they are absolutely gorgeous. It's a nice shaped you know, nice shaped plant anyway, again, a little bit like the nadina, wouldn't love a really windy spot, so just give it a bit of shelter wherever it goes. But generally speaking, it's a brilliant one.

Speaker 1: 7:20

Next one on the list is very hardy. If you're worried about, you know, hardiness. This one is going to grow pretty much everywhere. I've never seen it. Not to grow would be seen as a little bit old-fashioned in certain circles. But there's loads of variety in it, very, very tough and it's berberis, thumbergii and, yeah, as I say, a little bit old-fashioned in certain in certain people's minds I guess.

Speaker 1: 7:47

But there is a variety of colors in it. You can get gold, you can get orange, you can get deep red and they just look stunning at this time of the year. Some good varieties orange rocket, obviously, that's an orange one. Then there's autopurpia, that's a purple one. They're very, very thorny. You, you know you don't want to be getting. When you're handling them you have to be really careful because they are very, very thorny, or some of them are thorny. There is thornless ones as well. But they are just tough, hardy, will grow pretty much anywhere and their autumn color is phenomenal. So they're really really worth, you know, they're really worth um having in the garden, for toughness alone they're. They're really, really worth. You know, they're really worth having in the garden For toughness alone. They're brilliant. But then this autumn color, this red, really vibrant red color, looks brilliant.

Speaker 1: 8:35

Then we go on to the trees. So that's the five sort of smaller ones. We're talking about Cornus Cusa Nadina Domestica, we're talking about Cotinus Smokebush. We're talking about cotinus smoke bush, we're talking about berberis and euonymus atlat at atlantis and they're, as I said, five really good kind of shrubby, large shrub for autumn color. Onto the trees then, and you will.

Speaker 1: 9:00

You know some of these have been mentioned before and the first one is liquid amber or sweet gum, and this is probably the most famous tree for autumn color and it would be a big tree or can be a big tree. It'll grow in most sites. You know, pretty hardy, generally speaking, and will grow on most sites, lights, likes, a good bit of moisture in the ground not waterlogged but a good bit of moisture in the ground not waterlogged but a good bit of moisture and will grow, as I say, in most sites. It is typically seen as a big tree like large. You need to put it in a large space. But this is what I was saying about some of the garden centres.

Speaker 1: 9:40

I think it was Johnstown Garden Centre this week I saw that they were posting videos of some new varieties of liquid amber or varieties that I hadn't come across before that are actually quite small and grow quite small. So they have all the features you know, the shape leaf, the, the nice shape leaf, the autumn color, the structure of the standard liquid amber or sweet gum tree. But they grow, have a much smaller habit and that might be suitable for smaller gardens or even for a bigger garden. If you want to feature it in a certain spot but you don't want it to completely take over that zone, then they could be good options. The varieties, I can't think of that. They mentioned just offhand, but if you look up Johnstown Garden Centre they definitely mentioned them during the week and I'm sure others have them as well. So there are slightly smaller liquid amber, but liquid amber, you know, whichever variety, is phenomenal for autumn colour. I would say it's, you know, probably the most standout one when you look up or you ask people about it. It's the one that comes up in most people's discussions on it, the one that comes up in most people's in most people's discussions on it.

Speaker 1: 10:50

The next tree is definitely up there as well with liquid amber in terms of how popular it is for autumn color, but it also has phenomenal interest throughout the year and that's the japanese maple and these are beautiful um for any of you to listen to the podcast for a long time, something that I've struggled to grow here quite windy here, quite cold, and have never been able to plant it too. Both of them have died, haven't fully given up on it yet. We'll definitely try again. But yeah, they don't like wind and, as I say, I'd be quite windy here, and they just struggled and both of them died. But it's a phenomenally. They are phenomenally beautiful. So, japanese maples One of the most popular ones is it's a Japanese maple Azukaku and it's I might not have the pronunciation exactly right, but that one is on the hardier side.

Speaker 1: 11:45

So some of these are. You know they range from being quite tender to reasonably hardy and you know this variety would fall under that. But the autumn color from that is really strong. It's a deep, deep red and standout tree. So that's the japanese maple.

Speaker 1: 12:03

Next one on the list is again possibly noted again as maybe being old fashioned but has multiple seasons of interest. It's one that I've planted a couple of years ago. It's one over the years I would have planted going back 20 years ago, would have planted it in 30 years ago even, and it's Sorbus Joseph Rock, so again, would be maybe seen as a little bit old fashioned, but it's a phenomenally good tree. So you have multiple seasons of interest, you have lovely flower, lovely berries at this time of the year and also brilliant, brilliant autumn color and it's a standout tree. So there's a good few Sorbus. There's another one called Autumn Spire. That's a brilliant autumn color tree, has the name you know it can autumn spire. It gives you that name. That's a really, really good tree. So sorbis, joseph, rock, autumn spire or some of the other sorbis, they'll all give you decent, decent kind of autumn color, hardy, really hardy, so they're mountain ash essentially. So they will grow. You know they'll pretty much grow in any garden in any situation. So you know, if you're struggling to get something to grow, these guys will definitely work.

Speaker 1: 13:14

Next one on the list is phenomenally beautiful tree as well. Again, I would have mentioned it on, you know, when talking about trees in the past, and the reason it would be mentioned is it has multiple seasons of interest and it's Acer griseum. Now, acer griseum is typically grown or sought after for its bark, so it has a kind of a chestnut-y colour bark and it peels. So it has this peeling bark in a really kind of reddy, chestnut-y colour and that is as the tree matures that becomes, you know, more pronounced and it's phenomenal and that's mostly why you know where that tree is famous. But it does have, like a lot of the acers, it does have a really gorgeous, a really gorgeous um autumn color and the bark obviously will show once the leaves drop, but the leaves are ready orange color as they change and and they look brilliant. So acergrisium, another phenomenal tree. It's more of a specimen tree or statement tree. It's not one you know for, like it's, it's going to be an expensive tree, but a really worthwhile tree to grow, phenomenally beautiful and, and, as I say, worthwhile having in any garden.

Speaker 1: 14:33

The last one is my favorite tree, has been for a number of years anyway, you've listened to the podcast before. You'll know that I've mentioned it before and I have one out the front. It's a red oak or a curcass rubra and it has taken a few years. It's getting quite big now, reasonably big now, and it has taken a few years for it to start to really, I suppose, for it to really grow enough to catch your eye at this time of the year. Initially, for the first couple of years after it's planted, you obviously get that beautiful red leaf. But they weren't holding the leaf because the tree was still quite young, so the leaves were coming off quite quickly, so that that really bright red was sporadic and not over a over a longish period of time, whereas now, as the as the tree is maturing, it's getting quite big and it's holding the leaf for a lot longer. So you're getting that really kind of big hit of red color. Previously it would have been the bottom leaves would have went red. By the time the top leaves or the middle leaves were gone red, the bottom ones had fell off. But now that is starting to develop. As the tree gets older it's there. It's probably heading for seven and eight years now over time. That's going to be there for a long time. It'll probably, you know, be there 20, 30, 40, 50 years hopefully. And as it develops, as that develops, it's going to, you know, become more and more impressive over time.

Speaker 1: 16:07

And definitely my favorite tree in terms of autumn color is red oak or Quercus rubra. So that's the 10 plants. They're phenomenally beautiful. There's loads of others notable mentions for the likes of a pyracanta at this time of the year, not for its leaf but for the phenomenal wall of berries that you'll see around the country at the moment. I saw a beautiful one last week. It was a stud farm they were planted into like granite, granite planters or granite kind of troughs and they were just planted maybe a couple of meters apart and they had a whole wall, maybe 50 to 80 meters in length, just mass of berries and it just looked phenomenal. So notable mention to that, not for the leaf color but for the color of the berry. Cotoneaster is another one standing out really, really strong with berries at the moment. Actually, I've seen some hollies in full berry at the moment, which I don't know if that's a worrying sign, but hollies with full berry on them a couple of weeks don't know if that's a worrying sign, but holly's with full berry on them a couple of weeks ago, um, so that's interesting and but cotoneaster, brilliant, looks really great with all the berries on it at the moment. Um, some of the malices, you know the that we would again, we would have spoke about them before the Malus John Downey, malus Everestae, any of those notable for autumn colour as well. So again, periods of interest. Again, we're talking about multiple periods of interest with certain trees. Another Acer, acer Campestre, brilliant, brilliant autumn colour as well. So there's loads more there.

Speaker 1: 17:48

Some of these I've covered on on on a list before. Some of them I haven't, but they're the standout ones. At this time of the year, you know, you walk, walk through a forest or drive through an area, an avenue or anything like that, and you see that massive color change. It's just, I really like this time of the year and I really love those colors. But if you want to get them into your garden, see them now in all their glory and get them planted in the next couple of weeks. It's a it's a brilliant time to do so.

Speaker 1: 18:17

For any of you that are following along on the grow along, make sure to get your questions into me. So I have a good few questions around sowing, around consistency of heat and when to grow on, how to grow on and all that. So all the sewing is done. For any of you that haven't caught up on those videos yet, so to so, go to master my garden on youtube, there's two videos there. Start with the first, one of everything that you're going to need. Second one shows you how to sow the seeds and then I'll answer questions. So anyone with questions around what to sow, when to sow, temperatures, watering, potting, on pricking out any of those type questions. Get them into me and then I'll answer them. I'll answer them on Monday when I go live on YouTube. So go live on YouTube at eight o'clock on Monday and hopefully I'll answer all of those questions at that time.

Speaker 1: 19:07

And yeah, the grow along has caught a bit of interest. All right, it's nice. It's nice to see people kind of getting in, getting stuck in that, people asking questions about what to do next and so on. So if you have any of those questions, send me a message on instagram, shoot me a message or, in the comments of the youtube videos, email me info at mastermygardencom. That's info at mastermygardencom. That's info at mastermygardencom. Any of those questions, just shoot them through to me and I'll answer them. I'll answer them on the, you know, wherever you send them to me, but I'll also answer them on the live as well, because the more questions that people ask, I suppose the more it'll help everybody else that's taken part in this grow along.

Speaker 1: 19:49

Temperatures have been good, but light levels have been really poor this week. So it has been relatively mild and warm, but there's very, very little sunlight again today, like just a pure dark day, raining all day, so light levels are poor and light levels are tightening in, so but the heat is good, so we should be getting germination relatively quickly. I'll keep an eye on it, I'll keep you posted on it, but should get germination relatively quickly and then hopefully in a few weeks time we'll be looking at pricking out and moving on and so on. Supposed to get very good weather, I think, from next week on. So I'm expecting that to really push on all these little seedlings, so that, to you know, really push on all these little ceilings. So, yeah, it's interesting and it's good to see people taking part and to grow along. Don't forget to send me your pictures as well. Keep me updated. Any questions, just shoot them through.

Speaker 1: 20:39

And that's been this week's episode on 10 plants for autumn color in an irish garden. So don't fall behind. You know, just every year I say this people will see them, they admire them, then they forget about them. Why not go out now, get them into your gardens? As I say, a lot of the garden centres are posting videos on it, posting suitable plants, and there's some of them that have been on the list before, but some of them are new arrivals there and certainly a smaller grown liquid amber sounds like you know a really interesting tree for a lot of gardens because the the autumn color is just phenomenal from that.

Speaker 1: 21:14

So yeah, hope that helps. Hope that gives you some inspiration to get some autumn color into the garden. That isn't flower we can talk about flower, we have talked about flower before, but you know that autumn color from leaf, from berry interest that sort of thing is. You know it just looks gorgeous at this time of year. So hope that helped. Looking forward to your questions on the grow along and I'll be live on YouTube again on Monday night to go through any of the questions that have come up on the perennial grow along. So that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening and I'll tell the next time. Happy gardening, thank you.