Autumn

With Spring bulbs and Summer flowering shrubs making sure those seasons work in the garden, designing for Autumn needs to be subtle and draw upon not just colour but textural and tonal contrasts.This first picture below I took in West Sussex at Petworth house. A very good hot coloured combination as the weather gets cooler.The Cardoon, purple Asters and Miscanthus grass is one of my favourite combinations for a late Autumn border, majestic and detailed.Sedums and silver Artemesia provide a vivid backdrop for the sultry coloured Chocolate Cosmos

Over the next two weeks I will writing about Autumn colour and tone.Against a backdrop of fading light and yellowing leaves the colour of flowers in Autumn seems its most intense.Also by leaving the seedheads on Phlomis italics, Globe Artichoke and Eryingium, back drop planting with majestic grasses like Miscanthus and choosing bright colourful plants like Crocosmia, Dahlias, Asters and Sedums Autumn creates its own amazing tapestry which somehow is easier to contemplate than the restless and rapid growth of a summer garden.

With the smouldering greys, bronzes, lemon yellows and red wine hues of Autumn bursts of brighter colours can flash from the garden beds well into October and November. Here at the Prairie Gardens (see last Blog), Asters and Rudbekias shine like jewels as the days shorten. They are like Summer's little power batteries that have been growing all year to turn on brightly just as the sun shortens its stay each day. As well as these flowers, tall Eupatoriums with Miscanthus grass and the hot spots of Dahlias and Sedums under the Hornbeams give the garden a smoky atmosphere of [...]

Autumn is upon us. Here is a bed we made last year, with Autumn Sedum, Veronicastrum, Verbena bonsariensis, Zantedeschia Aethiopica and Step tenuissima. I love how the colours pick up the golds, greens and purples of the far off border.