Editor:
Gail Cocker recommends three native shrubs and trees, attractive in the fall, that we might consider adding to our gardens (Add a native shrub to your garden and make the birds happy, The Creemore Echo, Oct. 13, page 5).
Our gardens would be very dull if we included only ‘native’ shrubs. May I suggest, with fall colour in mind, that ambitious gardeners might include in their garden portfolio almost any form of Viburnum plicatum, typically with white flowers in May, brilliant red-turning-black berries followed by purple foliage – ‘Mariesii’ is a particularly good selection; the oak-leaved hydrangea, Hydrangea quercifolia, with bold leaves that often colour well in the fall; Bush Clover, Lespedeza thunbergii, withpurple-rose flowers on long arching branches through September; peony species with capsules of red and black (viable) seed; hardy Cyclamen hederifolium, delicately beautiful in rose and white under shrubs; a range of mountain ash with berries from the palest yellow through pink, shades of orange and red, to white, often with brilliant foliage; and crab apples, with many variations of ruby-like fruit. Most of these come from distant places, though the hydrangeamight qualify as native – it comes from the south east USA.
Brian Bixley,
Lilactree Farm, Mulmur.