This is conspicuous in the early autumn when it is carrying its long, drooping, catkin-like racemes of fragrant green-white flowers, viewed against elegant, holly-like foliage. This is a striking, unusual and reasonably hardy shrub. Less hardy and demanding a lime-free soil is the choice and beautiful coral plant, Berberidopsis corallina. This is well worth a place where there is adequate moisture and the site is shaded. This is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable and spectacular of climbing plants. Its heart-shaped, fine-toothed leaves are blue-white beneath and in late summer and autumn are borne drooping racemes of deep crimson flowers at least 4in(iocm) long. The firethorns, Pyracantha, are familiar and perhaps rather overplanted as wall shrubs. They are hardy and can be allowed to develop their natural shape and size in a free-standing position. However, they provide excellent evergreen cover for a shaded wall, and if long, lateral growths are pruned back immediately after the white flowers fade, a neat habit is maintained. In recent years some new cultivars reaching us from the United States are said to be resistent to fireblight and scab, troublesome diseases which have caused die-back of pyracanthas. All of them produce spectacular displays of berries in the autumn, these persisting into winter. These newer cultivars include 'Golden Charmer', 'Mohave' (with large orange-red fruits), 'Orange Glow' and 'Tetron' (which has a narrow, upright habit and yellow fruits). For reliable winter flowering, one cannot exclude the yellow winter jasmine, Jasminum nudiflorum. Its bright yellow flowers appear in open weather from November to February and are invaluable if branchlets are cut and brought into the house in bud, to open on the dullest of winter days. Although excellent as ground cover on difficult steep banks, it makes a fine wall shrub and may be trained up quite a tall wall, if desired, to festoon down most attractively. Cut back long growths immediately after flowering has finished to maintain a neat, compact wall coverage. Garrya elliptica, particularly in its best male form 'James Roof, is a magnificent spectacle during January and February when hung with its long grey-green catkins. This is a magnificent, wind-resistant evergreen but the leaves can be "scorched" in severe weather. The female plant, although its catkins are shorter, has interesting deep brown-purple fruits in long clusters. For summer and autumn effect a garrya can play host to a good clematis species, such as C. tangutica with its numerous bell-shaped yellow flowers and silky seed heads. If you have a lime-free soil, you can also associate with it the scrambling Scotch creeper, Tropaeolum speciosum, which usually establishes well in cool, shady conditions, particularly in the north of England and Scotland. When growing well, it is sensational with its scarlet nasturtium flowers 15 intern) across, produced freely from June onwards.