Autumn is often the most colourful season in the garden, and one of the longest as foliage tints and fruits develop over the course of many weeks. There are many trees and shrubs that are renowned for their autumn displays but it’s euonymus that really catch the eye, both for their unusual leaf colour and for their fascinating fruits.
Perhaps because we tend to think of them simply as useful evergreens for hedging and groundcover, euonymus may not be an automatic first choice when selecting shrubs specifically for autumn. The variegated forms of Euonymus fortunei and Euonymus japonicus are so widely planted that they are always the members of the genus that spring to mind.
Yet it’s the deciduous varieties that provide the greatest autumn interest. These are good transitional shrubs that sit well in mixed beds and borders, adding seasonal interest among evergreens and an additional season alongside spring and summer flowering plants. They range in size from the easily accommodated Euonymus alatus ‘Compactus’ to E. europaeus and E. hamiltonianus, which can make small trees. They are also very versatile, growing on most soils and positively thriving on chalk.
For much of the year the British native Euonymus europaeus, better known as spindle, goes unnoticed in hedgerows and on forest edges. A large, deciduous shrub with ordinary mid-green leaves and small greenish flowers, it’s attractive only to insects in search of pollen and nectar. But then autumn arrives and the foliage blushes crimson-pink, while the triangular seed capsules ripen to magenta, splitting open to reveal bright-orange seeds. Individual plants vary in terms of their intensity, but in sunny situations on chalk soil the display can be spectacular.
The common
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