IN FULL BLOOM
During this season of abundance, take inspiration from nature’s berries, flowers and foliage to create a colourful display
Expert advice on creating your own seasonal floral arrangement
as the growing season comes to its fruition, our thoughts turn to picking, gathering and making the most of nature’s bounty, while also reflecting on our hard work throughout the year. With the temperature dropping and daylight hours shortening, plant growth slows down. It is time to pause and admire the full-blown glory of late summer, and celebrate the turning of the seasons with an autumn project, capturing the feeling of abundance now surrounding us.
While the hedgerows are laden with bright, ripe berries and plenty of richly coloured foliage, it’s possible to echo the varied shapes, colours and textures of the landscape in a floral display. Hawthorn and sloe berries, rosehips, sorbus, cotoneaster, viburnum, ilex and photinia, with their variation of vibrant leaves and fruit, all suit this kind of treatment.
Unexpected seasonal ingredients from the garden or vegetable plot, such as bolting brassica plants, kale leaves, herbs, fruit and flowers, look great in autumn arrangements. Many edibles are also very decorative, making them excellent multipurpose plants. One of my favourites in the vegetable garden is red orach (Atriplex hortensis rubra). Its young leaves can be added to salads and, when mature, it makes a tall architectural foliage plant with racemes of tiny flowers, often used in floristry. Later in the year, its dry seedpods also make an attractive feature. Ferns, tawny grasses, dried flowers and seed heads will create a muted background and wonderfully offset the rich reds and purples of dahlias. See overleaf for instructions on how to create an autumn wreath for your home.