How Can I Enjoy the Garden Throughout Autumn?
Thoughtful planting and design details mean you can make your garden a pleasing space long past summer
Autumn is a wonderful time in the garden. With the low level of evening light casting intricate shadows and the leaves changing colour to reds, oranges and golds, it’s just magical. But how can we extend our time outside? With the right planting and accessories, autumn nights and days are just as special as the first new growth of spring.
Make space for a kitchen garden
If you can, give over an area to growing vegetables. At this time of year, kitchen gardens are brimming with the lovely colours of squash, pumpkin and courgette. Picking can go well into autumn and winter – giving you a reason to be outside as well as the ingredients for warming soups and casseroles.
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If you can, give over an area to growing vegetables. At this time of year, kitchen gardens are brimming with the lovely colours of squash, pumpkin and courgette. Picking can go well into autumn and winter – giving you a reason to be outside as well as the ingredients for warming soups and casseroles.
Easily find and hire reviewed garden designers on Houzz.
Choose trees for autumn colour
Autumn can be one of the best times of the year in the garden if you plant trees famous for their spectacular displays of colour. Acer palmatum ‘Ribesifolium’, for instance, turns a wonderful variety of shades that keep changing as the season progresses. A simple garden design like this will help to accentuate the colours.
Autumn can be one of the best times of the year in the garden if you plant trees famous for their spectacular displays of colour. Acer palmatum ‘Ribesifolium’, for instance, turns a wonderful variety of shades that keep changing as the season progresses. A simple garden design like this will help to accentuate the colours.
Build an outdoor fireplace
A built-in fireplace makes keeping warm outside easy. This tall Cotswold stone fireplace and chimney on the end of the oak-framed extension helps create a wonderful outdoor living room that can be enjoyed on cool summer evenings and well into the autumn – or even winter – months. The fireplace becomes a central feature for the seating as it would inside the house.
Be aware that in certain areas, much of London as one example, there are restrictions on what you can burn. The Government’s UK Air Information Resource has advice, guidelines and legal information on this topic.
You could also look at bioethanol as a clean alternative.
More: How to Create a Sustainable Garden
A built-in fireplace makes keeping warm outside easy. This tall Cotswold stone fireplace and chimney on the end of the oak-framed extension helps create a wonderful outdoor living room that can be enjoyed on cool summer evenings and well into the autumn – or even winter – months. The fireplace becomes a central feature for the seating as it would inside the house.
Be aware that in certain areas, much of London as one example, there are restrictions on what you can burn. The Government’s UK Air Information Resource has advice, guidelines and legal information on this topic.
You could also look at bioethanol as a clean alternative.
More: How to Create a Sustainable Garden
Keep cosy on the roof
Even roof terraces and tiny patios can have their own fireplaces. This gas fire creates a chic and inviting space for entertaining, and the funky design adds to the appeal, with the evening light casting shadows across the white wall.
Again, check out the Government guidance referred to above on this, or consider a bioethanol version – you can now get outdoor burners, fireplaces and firepits that run on it.
Even roof terraces and tiny patios can have their own fireplaces. This gas fire creates a chic and inviting space for entertaining, and the funky design adds to the appeal, with the evening light casting shadows across the white wall.
Again, check out the Government guidance referred to above on this, or consider a bioethanol version – you can now get outdoor burners, fireplaces and firepits that run on it.
Leave seedheads alone
A garden in the autumn can look bare and uninteresting, but if you leave the seedheads on and the grasses long, like here at RHS Garden Wisley, then the season will carry on well into the winter months. Allium seedheads can be seen here between the asters and grasses.
More: How to Start a Garden Redesign
A garden in the autumn can look bare and uninteresting, but if you leave the seedheads on and the grasses long, like here at RHS Garden Wisley, then the season will carry on well into the winter months. Allium seedheads can be seen here between the asters and grasses.
More: How to Start a Garden Redesign
Add shape with topiary
By having topiary in your garden, you don’t need to add any flowers or colour, as the strong shapes hold themselves right through the seasons. These wonderful Taxus (yew) clipped shapes at Parsonage Farm in West Sussex demonstrate this perfectly.
By having topiary in your garden, you don’t need to add any flowers or colour, as the strong shapes hold themselves right through the seasons. These wonderful Taxus (yew) clipped shapes at Parsonage Farm in West Sussex demonstrate this perfectly.
Coordinate materials with your planting
Corten steel rusts to form its own protective coating, slowing the rate of future corrosion. Corten steel planters, rusted to a lovely orange hue, are not only attractive in their own right, but, used with the right plants, can add to the autumnal colour and help reflect the light.
Corten steel rusts to form its own protective coating, slowing the rate of future corrosion. Corten steel planters, rusted to a lovely orange hue, are not only attractive in their own right, but, used with the right plants, can add to the autumnal colour and help reflect the light.
Choose sculptural plants to add interest to an autumnal scene
These bullrush sculptures on a plain area of lawn at RHS Garden Wisley are simple but effective, and quite at home under the arching layers of the lovely Liquidambar trees.
You could do the same with plants – varieties of dogwoods that have been pollarded will give a wonderful sculptural effect, along with striking stem colour. Cornus alba ‘Sibirica’, Cornus alba ‘Elegantissima’, and Cornus Sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’ are all good choices.
Tell us…
Have you given your garden autumn interest? Share your tips and photos in the Comments.
These bullrush sculptures on a plain area of lawn at RHS Garden Wisley are simple but effective, and quite at home under the arching layers of the lovely Liquidambar trees.
You could do the same with plants – varieties of dogwoods that have been pollarded will give a wonderful sculptural effect, along with striking stem colour. Cornus alba ‘Sibirica’, Cornus alba ‘Elegantissima’, and Cornus Sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’ are all good choices.
Tell us…
Have you given your garden autumn interest? Share your tips and photos in the Comments.
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Autumn is the season when leaves get to shine. Both in the flowerbed with varieties of Sedum and up in the canopy with trees such as Acer, maple, beech and Liquidambar, autumn colour can be accentuated in a garden – or even an area you drive down or park in – if you plan it properly.
Grasses come into their own in autumn, too. Calamagrostis ‘Karl Foerster’ is good for its upright architectural quality, as is Stipa gigantea, which looks wonderful shimmering in the light.