An October morning

A bouquet of dry flowers

In every year I dry flowers for the winter. In this year I dried them in a place which was not airy enough, so I unfortunately had to throw out two third of them. Nevertheless, there remained enough for two bouquets.

Autumn has come

... what a beautiful, cold autumn (Xin Qiji)

Euonymus alatus 'Compactus'

I have not believed it until I saw in our own garden that this is the real autumn color of this shrub.

This is how it begins.

This is another shrub which has just started to turn in red. This one has already developed to full hight; in the future it will only get larger. The ones on sale are usually one meter high, but as you can see on the picture, it will develop higher, one and half or – according to some pages – two meters. The width of a fully developed shrub is between one and half and two meters, too. (You have to keep an eye on what you buy, because the basic species is twice as great.

It is particularly beautiful with Miscanthus and Pennisetum.

It is also well accompanied with hosta, barberry, cotoneaster and cherry laurel. It is often used in Japanese gardens. It tolerates surprisingly much shade, although it becomes coloured much later if planted in shade. As to the soil, it has no special demands, and resistant to aridity – but it will not suffer the hottest (30ºC+) weeks of our summer without proper watering.

Now, in the autumn you can buy it in many places. Before you buy it in the chic garden centers, you should also check it in the more popular nurseries. I for example purchased the above great one for about twelve euros in the Zöldkirály Nursery one or two years ago, while in the New Garden center they sold smaller ones for about seventy in the same time.

High season of grasses

The first one is the Miscanthus sinensis 'Neue Hybriden', already mentioned in the post of August 8. It has already began to turn in green. By the end of the autumn the complete plant will assume a warm yellow color.

The Pennisetum - Persicaria (Polygonum) couple, also mentioned in the post of August 8, is just as beautiful as it was then.

The Miscanthus sinensis 'Ferner Osten', also mentioned there, assumes particularly beautiful colors. (For some other Miscanthus sports see the Bluestem Nurserey.)

In September starts to bloom the Stipa brachytricha as well – in my opinion one of the most attractive grasses.

And finally a composition of some smaller grasses. (The one with the red leaves is a Carex flagellifera, the small green one an Eragrostis spectabilis, while the long one a Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster'.)

With the exception of Carex, all of them can be also planted in relatively dry part-shadow.