To create autumn and winter interest in your English Garden as well as benefiting the wildlife - try planting a selection of shrubs that have autumn or winter berries.
Whatever size of garden you have, you will be able to find a shrub of suitable habit.
Shrubs with berries go particularly well with perennial plants as their colourful fruit laden branches help to create visual interest as the perennials fade.
You can also use them to disguise sheds or unwanted features or maybe have a couple as a glorious specimen bushes.
Here is my selection of shrubs that will add colour to your garden in the autumn and winter months.
Guelder Rose or Viburnum opulus “Compactum”.
A deciduous hardy shrub that grows to 5ft or 1.5m and has lovely white flowers in the spring. In the autumn it develops bright red bunches of berries, and as an added bonus its leaves turn many shades of red before they fall. It prefers a sunny spot.
Viburnum wrightii hessei is smaller and grows to 3ft or 1m. It has white flowers in the summer and red berries in the autumn.
For a larger Viburnum try Viburnum betutifolium which is an upright shrub that grows to 10ft or 3m and also has bright red berries in the autumn.
Cotoneaster simonsii has good orange/red berries and grows to 8ft or 2.5m.Cotoneaster lacteus is larger and grows to 15ft or 5m – both are good as hedges.
Cotoneaster horizonalis is smaller and has pinky white flowers in spring with red berries in the autumn – good for smaller spaces it only grows to 2ft or 75cm in a sunny spot.
Pyracantha Golden Charmer is an evergreen spiny shrub that has white flowers in the early summer and bright orange berries in autumn. It grows to 10ft or 3m.
For a smaller shrub try Pyracantha Golden Dome which only grows to 6ft or 2m and has orange/yellow berries.
Berberis darwinii is a hardy bush with arching branches carrying orangey yellow flowers in the late spring and bluishberries in autumn. It grows to 10ft or 3m.
Berberis Rubrostilla is deciduous and has yellow flowers in early summer followed by large red berries in autumn - the leaves also turn glorious shades of red. It likes a sunny spot and grows to 5ft or 1.5m.
Skimmia japonica is a slow growing evergreen shrub that comes in both white berried or red berried varieties – that main thing is to grow both female and male varieties otherwise you will not get any berries! Grows to 21/2 to 31/2 ft ish or 85cm to 1.1m. For the white variety try Fructu-albo.
Hawthorn or Quickthorn Crataegus monogyna is in most English country gardens and can be trained as a hedge or grown as a specimen. It grows to 25ft or 7.6m if left unpruned and has white flowers in spring followed by dark red berries in the autumn – much loved by birds.
Hollies Ilex with their bright red berries are another staple of an English Garden. They come in all shapes and sizes but for most you need to remember that you must have plants of both sexes to get berries!
They like well-drained soil in a sunny spot to do their best and can be made into hedges very successfully – a good deterrent for burglars or unwanted animals. There are silver or gold edged leaf varieties and ones with a bluish tint to their leaves.
If you have the space try an Elderberry or Sambucus nigra which has lovely creamy white fragrant flowers in the early summer – these can be made into cordials or wine – and clusters of small dark berries in the autumn – which again can be made into wine! It grows into a small tree 20ft or 6m tall.
Enjoy your garden!
