Jackie French's favourite things to do with autumn leaves

The last lot decorated my car till I was halfway to Canberra and, even when I got home, there was still a yellow one under the windscreen wiper.

The second best thing to do is nothing at all, just let the leaves fall in a stunning ring of colour. At the moment here it's deep orange under the persimmon trees, and a butter yellow halo under the ginkgo. Week after week in autumn new trees change colour. The various poplars begin the spree, then the mulberry. The apples are among the last and the medlar and pomegranates, with the white cedar, Melia azedarach, waiting until almost mid-winter to turn yellow and drop, just as we have begun raking up the brown gunge the autumn leaves have turned into.

After the leaves drop, the white cedar berries turn bright red, and then the rosellas and king parrots arrive, sitting ridiculously gaudy on the bare branches like an out-of-season Christmas card. Melia azedarach is one of Australia's few native deciduous trees, heat and cold hardy, but best grown where there aren't many others, so they don't get attacked by the white cedar moth and its offspring.

The third best thing? Run the lawn mower over them and use the catcher to gather them up, nicely shredded. Leaves are shaped all too aerodynamically perfectly so they can blow for long distances. Shred them and they become stable garden mulch, not particularly high in nutrients but not too bad either, foraged by roots from deep in the soil. Add a scattering of fertiliser on the top, to help it break down and to feed the soil.

Fourth best: rake them into a garden bed shape and around about August, slip seed potatoes into it, which is what I did last winter. And which reminds me I must get around to harvesting the spuds, not that they'll reshoot in this weather for a while, so there is no hurry. But it's definitely the right weather for a home-grown spud baked in its jacket and eaten hot, with butter if you have no need to worry about cholesterol, or a warm vinaigrette of one tablespoon of lemon juice, two of olive oil and a teaspoon of good French mustard. Vinaigrette is traditionally served with/as a dressing on salads, but it's even better served on hot veg. Wonderful on winter broccoli, too.

Back to leaves, and number five. Catch a leaf while it's falling and, according to legend, you'll have a wonderful month. Catch 12 of them and you'll have a glorious year. Even if it isn't true it is still surprisingly good fun to cavort among falling leaves trying to catch one before it hits the ground. Get the kids to keep a look out for when the wind is exactly right for another leaf fall.

And number six: just look at them. Sit at the window, or out in the autumn sunlight and just enjoy them. If you can't see any, plant some. Soon.

You don't need many deciduous trees, shrubs or climbers like ornamental grapes to make a glorious showing. The one thing about autumn colours is that they are BIG. My favourites of course are the useful ones, such as medlar (gorgeous jelly from the fruit), persimmon, possibly the most naturally perfectly shaped fruit tree in the world, with the orange fruit hanging from the bare branches till you or the birds eat it, just as the medlars hang too, till they are "bletted" and turned soft by frost. But medlars are brown, brown and brown, unless rimmed with ice, statuesque rather than with an autumn palette.

Sugar maple trees are stunners for autumn colour – I'll write about turning their sap into maple syrup later in winter. Apples turn yellow, but a bit patchily, with often a bit too much brown to attain true gloriousness, except in colder climates. Peaches also look fabulous only if you have at least a thousand of them. Ditto apricots. Chestnuts vary with the season, sometimes an almost flame-like yellow, at other times turning dingy even before they fall. Oaks were traditionally used to fatten pigs that ate the fallen acorns, but though they give a fabulous showing, the leaves tend to stay on the tree far too long, so trees and brown leaves look depressingly winterish. Dogwoods take a few years to settle in to autumn glory, but once well established are a true "four season" beauty.

The true glory of autumn leaves is that they come as a seasonal succession. Planted well, in a large garden or in a street where others have planted for autumn too, you can have autumn leaf colour for three months of the year. Every day another tree will have turned or, even better, just one branch of a tree, usually the top one, with the colour seeping downwards just as the top leaves begin to fall.

The choice of "which is best" probably has to be a strictly local one. Go and mooch now and see what looks superb. Keep doing that for the next two months – an excellent excuse for a morning walk or run – and then do the same for the next five years, as what looks brilliant one season may be dingy the next. Drought summers tend to give early, short and dingier autumns. Our long, cool, and reasonably moist summer has meant this autumn is a stunner.

The changing of the colours, and the dropping and renewing of the leaves, are a magic I still haven't got used to, even after more than 40 years down south again having spent most of my childhood in Queensland. It took several southern winters before I could see deciduous trees turn yellow and not worry they might be dying.

Even this year, flying over Italian forests, I thought "They're dead!", wondering what terrible blight had attacked the land. A week later the formerly bare trees were pale green and spring-like.

Now autumn may be my favourite time of year, far more colour-filled than spring and with months of letting the garden look after itself, the wombats slowly cropping the too-long grass into neatness and wombat droppings, the possums pruning the roses for us.

The best of the autumn is still to come: weeks and weeks of walking, sitting, and just watching.

* remembering to go and pick some proteas – they are hidden at the back of the garden, where they aren't missed when picked for the house, but can be overlooked altogether;

* definitely going out to dig up some spuds for lunch as soon as it stops raining;

* picking the mint to dry for mint tea through winter and the lemon grass too;

* accidentally crunching what may be the last snail of the season that had taken refuge on our doorstep;

* leaving the car out for the rain to wash it, and the autumn leaves to dapple it, again; and

* envying the bunch of late-blooming David Austin roses picked from a Braidwood courtyard. Stone and rock walls do retain heat and gardens bloom long after unprotected ones have faded. The scent was incredible, but I will need to wait for spring to smell it again, at least this year. By next year the new Souvenir de la Malmaison planted next to the stone walls here may be flowering well into winter and I will have late rose scents too.

One of the joys of email is the irregular "what we are having for dinner tonight?" from friends, especially those who cook. They tend to be cooking what is in the garden now or what the weather needs, like a good warming casserole.

This recipe was an old-fashioned beef casserole till Chris got hold of it, and changed just about everything in it except the slow cooking and scone topping, and even that gained spice. The marmalade was an inspiration.

2kg lamb, chopped
3 tbsp olive oil
½ cup marmalade
1 cup red wine
6 cups stock or more if it begins to look dry
a few carrots, peeled and chopped
a few mushrooms, chopped
¼ tsp paprika
1 tsp garam masala, or more to taste (can be much more – I like a lot, Bryan only a hint)
2 cups shallots, peeled

Brown the meat in the oil. Remove, put in a casserole dish; brown the shallots. Remove and add to the meat. Add the red wine and boil rapidly for 10 minutes, then pour it into the casserole – all the browned bits will come with it. Add other ingredients. Bake at 150C for 1½ to four hours or till tender. You can now leave it in the fridge for a day or two or even freeze.

2 cups self-raising flour
½ tsp ground ginger
2 tbsp butter
1 bunch chives, finely chopped
2 tbsp parsley, chopped
¼ cup milk, or a bit more
a little more milk or a beaten egg to brush the top

Half an hour before serving mix the scones by rubbing in the butter, then adding herbs and milk. Cut into rounds, and place over the top of the warmed or hot casserole. If it's cold the scones may not cook on the bottom when they are cooked on top. Each scone needs to be a little apart from the others, none touching each other, so they rise well.

Each one should be about as thick as your thumb, not big fat scones. Brush the top with a little milk to give a shiny finish. Beaten egg will make it even shiner.

Put the oven on high. Bake for about 20 minutes till the scones are brown on top and the juice sizzling at the edges. Serve hot, with the scone soaking up the gravy on your plate.

You can freeze the whole thing, scones and all, as frozen scones reheat reasonably well, even if they are not quite as delectable as when they were first made.

This dish looks spectacular as well as tasting wonderful.