The Garden in Autumn
There are so many reasons to love your garden in autumn, the crisp mornings, the enchanting colours and the way the pretty autumnal sunlight brings out the best in all of your plants.
Consider this season not as the beginnings of winter, but instead as a new planting opportunity and discover how you can turn your patches of bare, brown soil into a beautiful autumnal landscape.
Using Colour
Whilst you may want to use a traditional autumnal colour as a base for your planting, your garden will also benefit from juicy purples and reds, such as those from the Cangshan Cranberry, which naturally darken as the winter months come, giving your garden depth and panache.
There is so much more to garden in autumn than browns, yellows and oranges. Whilst these colours are beautiful, you might be surprised to know that you can still inject a rainbow of colourful plants and flowers into your garden, even as the colder weather is closing in.
You may also want to try out some beautiful green colours, to break up those heavy yellows and oranges. The Rudbeckia Laciniata, also known as the coneflower, is a perfect mix of pretty autumnal daisy flowers and dense, green leaf. A varied mix of colours will ensure that your autumn garden looks interesting and diverse throughout the colder months.
Using Texture & Shape
Another great way to diversify your autumn garden is to play around with different textures and shape. The sun is lower in the sky during autumn, which is perfect for creating some wonderful visual effects in a garden’s landscape.
Try planting some tall, billowing grasses, such as the Variegate or Foxtail Grass. Both of these varieties have a long, delicate shape and colour, as well as an interesting texture to add a real sense of wonder and beauty to any autumnal garden.
For those looking for clumps of vivid colour, the Riesenschirm is a uniquely textured plant that can grow to around 2.5 meters and looks beautiful throughout autumn and into the winter months.
Caring for Trees in Autumn
It’s important to have your garden trees trimmed back in autumn to not only ensure they are safe, but to keep them looking beautiful too. Whilst planting new shrubs is a fantastic way to improve your autumnal garden, preparing trees for the winter months is also an important part of this too.
Autumn is a fantastic time to get your trees checked for any problems such as overgrown branches or disease and a professional tidy up will add to the beauty of your new seasonal garden.
Planting Trees for Future Autumns
The evergreen Autumnalis is beautiful all year round but can provide some spectacular autumnal colours from September through to November. The tree also boasts attractive, delicate flowers from winter into the spring and its elegant leaves would not look out of place in a Japanese storybook. It really is the perfect partner to any delicate landscape.
The Snowy Mespilus aka Juneberry tree is tall, slim and offers up rich reddish-purple fruits during the autumn which are particularly favoured by birds. This rich and vivid colour reflects the autumnal months incredibly well and would be an exciting addition to anyone’s garden, no matter what time of the year it may be.
