AUTUMN colours are already burning bright at the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens and Arboretum, near Romsey. While most of the native English trees in our parks and gardens are still predominantly green, the huge collection of North American maples at the Hillier Gardens are already ablaze with fiery reds, ambers and yellows.>

Curator Mike Buffin says that autumn is a wonderful time to visit the gardens.

"The pond and three-acre paddock is the most famous area at the gardens for an autumn visit," he said. "At this time of year, no visit would be complete without stopping at this viewpoint to see this masterpiece of planting.

"In fact the hues and tints change from day to day, as autumn slips into winter, so it would require more than one autumn visit to see it all."

Another must for the autumn is the Acer (maple) Valley, where the trees - and even the ground beneath - are brilliant with coloured leaves.

In the Acer Valley, I noticed the particularly rich red of the Acer rubrum schlesingeri, while nearby the Acer Saccharum (black maple), with its butter yellow foliage, was picked out as one of the items of current interest.

Visitors to the Hillier Gardens are offered lots of interesting information about the trees and plants, although it is of course quite possible to disregard all this and simply enjoy walking around in the comfort and security of this beautiful 180-acre garden.

As you arrive at the ticket office, you will be given (free of charge) a printed list of plants of current interest and a map showing where to find them.I found this very helpful and interesting.

There were also numerous information boards at appropriate places to help you appreciate the planting.

Particularly well explained and labelled is the two-and-a-half-acre Winter Garden, an ambitious project designed to look at its best between November and March, although it is also well worth a visit now.

A huge variety of special plants and shrubs have been collected in this area, notably part of the National Collection of winter-flowering hamamelis (witch hazel). There are also numerous winter-scented plants and countless types of grasses, some small and feathery, and others huge and dramatic, such as the zebra-striped Miscanthus sinesis zebrinus.

Seeds, berries, bark and coloured stems of various plants also add to the winter interest, providing some inspiring ideas for keen gardeners. Look out for the Tibetan cherry, with its polished mahogany-red bark and the Pinus engelmanii, with pine needles well over 20cm long!

It is also interesting to learn that many recycled materials have been used to make the paths, seats and mulches used in this garden.

Elsewhere in the gardens, you will be able to see heather's, Michaelmas daisies, autumn cyclamen (Cyclamen cilicum) and dazzling "red hot pokers" (Kniphota rooperi).

But the real stars are the trees and shrubs, most of which were painstaking collected from all over the world by the late Sir Harold Hillier, who founded the gardens in 1953. He spoke of his "personal stamp collection" of rare plants and trees. They have created a garden for all seasons, now carefully managed by Hampshire County Council.

On Sundays throughout October, there is a series of free autumn garden tours, each led by one of the 19 gardening staff. The next is tomorrow and there are more on Sunday October 24 and on Sunday, October 31.

These tours last about 90 minutes and start at 2pm from the ticket office.

For children under seven, there is an afternoon of Halloween games on Thursday, October 28, from 1pm to 3pm.

For more information phone the gardens on (01794) 368787.

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.