Summer is fast becoming a fading memory as autumn steadily settles into its rhythm and seduces us with its own particular attractions. While there’s a notable number of plants that flower at this time of year, the star performers tend to be those with the most colourful foliage and the brightest fruit.
This year is being talked of as ‘a good one’ for fruit, an assessment that extends beyond the orchards to include woodlands, hedgerows and gardens.
The haws, hips, berries or whatever adorns a particular tree or shrub don’t even need to be edible (to us humans), just as long as they’re eye-catching. While planting a variety that’s ‘bird averse’ may be good from a selfish gardener’s point of view, it’s important to give consideration to our native songbirds, who need all the help they can get through winter.
The berries of pyracantha, rowan and burberis can be relied upon to provide strong autumn colour, but in terms of diversity none can match the cotoneasters.
Pronounced ‘ka-toni-aster’, this member of the rose family tends not to be too fussy about where it grows and will prove a positive addition to any garden space.
A genus that includes more than 200 species that grow in a range of habits, cotoneasters come in evergreen, semi-evergreen and deciduous varieties.
There are no Irish native cotoneasters – they generally originates in temperate Asia – however, you will commonly find Cotoneaster horizontalis, or what’s sometimes called the wall cotoneaster, growing in the wild. A prostrate evergreen with white flowers and bright red berries, it has put its roots down in Ireland with alarming success.
Cotoneaster franchetii
The shrub doesn’t pose any direct threat to native species, though its low-growing habit shades out other vegetation and is being blamed for reduction in the habitats that support native wild orchids.
Both careless humans and birds – thrushes, in particular – are seemingly responsible for its surprisingly widespread distribution. It’s a robust low-growing shrub that thrives where other vegetation struggles, on the likes of exposed limestone outcrops or by the shore.
It’s particularly rampant at Garron Head in Co Antrim and Belmore Mountain in Co Fermanagh, and has been designated an invasive alien on both sides of the border.
Cotoneaster lacteus or milkflower cotoneaster is less inclined to escape from the garden because its red fruits are avoided by birds. Growing to 4 m (13 ft) tall, this evergreen native to the Yunnan Province of China has arching, free-flowing, branches.
Its masses of small persistent fruit are preceded by a corresponding display of the (milk) white flowers from which the plant’s name is derived. Often grown as a hedge, it has gained the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit (AGM).
The deciduous varieties prefer a full sun position, while the semi-evergreens and evergreens do well in sun or partial shade.
Popular varieties include C. dammeri and C. frigidus ‘Cornubia’. Cotoneaster dammeri is also evergreen, but has a prostrate habit which makes it ideal for ground cover in rockeries and shady areas.
Again with white flowers and red berries, it will grow less than one foot in height, but will cover an area of up to four square metres. Cotoneaster frigidus ‘Cornubia’ is a deciduous variety which loses its long, narrow leaves in winter. Upright when young, it matures into an arching mass of branches and berries.
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