A riot of garden colour

If your bedding is starting to look tired? Here are some plants guaranteed to bring autumn colour you your pots.

Chrysanthemums bridge that gap between late summer, when many annuals have started to look straggly, and autumn, when berried fruits and autumn leaves change the colour palette of the garden. “They provide such a splash of colour. I wouldn’t mix them with anything else because they go over fairly quickly,” says horticulturist Tom Harris, author of Pots For All Seasons. I’d plant them as standalone specimens because they don’t sit comfortably with many things. The dwarf varieties form this beautifully rounded cushion so you don’t want anything sitting up against them. “They are beacons in their own right. They are fairly short lived, but if you love colour, they deliver that.” Put them somewhere sheltered where they won’t get too wet, to keep the flowers good for as long as possible.

CYCLAMEN

The hardy autumn-flowering type, Cyclamen hederifolium,

will brighten up any pot, in shades from white to pink and red, adding pops of colour to other autumn evergreens including heucheras. These hardy cyclamens should persist into winter. Match them with the bud-blooming heather, Calluna vulgaris, which will also last a long time, and pop in bulky ornamental cabbage a little later in the season to fill the pot.

VIOLAS

They are a favourite with gardeners, as they come in a huge variety of colours, but Tom suggests placing violas on a table or on a stand where you can see them, not on the ground.

“You get so many flowers with violas if you deadhead regularly. They can go with all sorts of things, but look great as a standalone in a very small pot raised on to a table

because you can appreciate the finer detail of them,” he explains.

“You can get quite a punch of colour from not many plants.”

HEUCHERA

Perfect for a lightly shaded corner, the value of these evergreen perennials is largely in their foliage, which is stunning, from acid greens to chocolate hues. Tom’s favourites include

‘Marmalade’, with its deep amber foliage, while the dramatic, deeper burgundy hue of ‘Chocolate Ruffles’ contrasts brilliantly with orange hued violas or cool, white-flowered cyclamen. They are great standalone specimens and the spikes of tiny flowers they throw up in summer are a magnet for bees. In warmer parts of the UK their leaves will remain all year, while in colder spots, they will die back and need tidying up in spring.

HEATHER

Bud-blooming heathers, as Calluna vulgaris is known, provide height and feathery structure to any autumn pot, and will last a long time. You can get pink and white varieties that are widely available, along with trailing versions.

SKIMMIA JAPONICA

These impressive evergreen shrubs often form the centrepiece or backbone of autumn and winter container displays, with their deep green evergreen leaves and shiny red berries. If you’ve only room for one, go for the subspecies reevesiana, which is hermaphrodite (self-fertile), so doesn’t require a male and female plant to be placed together for the female to produce berries. Plants with berries should be available in September and October. Pair them with other evergreens such as Euonymus fortunei ‘Emerald ‘n’ Gold’, and trailing green ivy, Tom suggests.

From left to right, autumn flowering cyclamen, chrysanthemums, autumn heather (Calluna vulgaris) with cyclamen an, far right, viola ‘sorbet antique shade’