Autumn may be upon us, but it doesn’t have to mean the end of colour in your garden.
As summer meanders into autumn, your garden can often look flat and devoid of colour, but all is not lost! There are plenty of late-flowering plants to bridge the colour gap between summer and autumn and see you through September and October, brightening our shorter days.
Try some of the following plant choices and planting combinations to keep your borders looking their best this autumn.
Low spreading mats of neat green leaves, which turn rich russet brown in autumn, remaining all winter. Larger spikes of pink flowers quickly deepening to red. Flowers midsummer-autumn.
Sedum ‘Chocolate Cherry’ is an upright, clump-forming, deciduous perennial with oblong to ovate, fleshy, maroon to purple-flushed, grey-green leaves and branching stems bearing clusters of rose-pink flowers from late summer into autumn.
A clump forming perennial with deeply lobed, dark green leaves flushed with dark bronze. Produces bright purple flowers with white centres in summer.
Nerine bowdenii is a bulbous perennial with strap-shaped rich green leaves preceded by erect stems bearing umbels of lily-like pink flowers 6-8cm in width, with wavy, recurved segments.
Salvia Nemerosa ‘Sensation Deep Rose’Â
A clump-forming, upright bushy perennial with green-grey sage scented foliage. Spikes of deep rose-pink flowers appear in the summer and autumn.
A bushy perennial with neat green foliage and masses of dusky rose flowers
Swathes of bright orange/yellow flowers make a striking display. This herbaceous perennial forms a clump to 60cm in height, with erect stems bearing narrowly ovate leaves and dark-eyed, deep yellow flowers to 12cm across. Fantastic addition to prairie style planted borders, alongside grasses. Can be cut back in autumn, though stems and seedheads persist well and can provide structure in winter.
Echinacea purpurea ‘Primadonna White’
An upright, clump-forming, herbaceous perennial with flowerheads with white ray florets surrounding a central bronze cone, grows to 90cm tall. Extremely attractive to butterflies.
Evergold’ is an evergreen sedge forming a clump to 35cm in height, the narrow arching leaves each with a central yellow stripe. Bold foliage and structure brings interest to borders in the form of a neat, mound-forming evergreen grass with slender, long-arching leaves with a glowing gold band between green margins. Brown flowers spikes in late spring.
Tricyrtis hirta ‘Akachan Daisy’
A unique funnel-shaped, perennial with white flowers spotted purple with pale green leaves, beautiful underplanted with roses.
A clump forming perennial with green leaves, white, semi-double flowers with lilac-blue bands on the reverse of the petals are borne on wiry, branched stems from summer into autumn.
‘Monroe White’ is a clump-forming perennial with dark, evergreen, strap-shaped leaves and upright spikes of white flowers in autumn – flowers September to November. Easy to grow in shade.
There are plenty of late-flowering or foliage interest perennial plants to bridge the colour gap between summer and autumn and see you through September, October and beyond, brightening our shorter days. Try our beautiful planting combinations that will return each year.
