Autumn is…

an explosion of colour, leaves falling, bright hips and berries and interesting seedheads

• Summer is often described as ‘fading’ into autumn, but really autumn explodes into the garden with all the force of a firework, and there is as much colour and diversity to enjoy in this season as any other. Consider the senescence of annual and herbaceous flowers when planning a border or planting a pot. It can make the display last far beyond the summer months, while seedheads left in the garden add beauty and structure and provide food for birds over winter as well.

• The magnificent reds, ambers and golds of autumn leaves, revealed as the plants draw in their green chlorophyll for the darker winter months, are not limited to trees. Many smaller plants also put on a show, such as blueberries, acers, cercis and spindle; have colourful stems such as pollarded willows and dogwoods; or interesting berries (try a callicarpa). Shrubs and trees are some of the few things you can plant in winter (providing the soil isn’t frozen) when they are dormant so they are nicely in the ground to establish themselves when the growing season begins.

• Plant a fruit tree – a bare root tree planted in January should give you a little fruit in its first autumn, but avoid planting in sodden or frozen ground. Apples can be squeezed into the smallest spaces along fences and in pots, or grow fruits you can’t buy easily such as damsons, quince, sloes or rowan berries.

• If you’re interested in flowers for drying you could choose and order seeds now ready to plant in your border or cut flower patch this spring and by summer and autumn they will produce flowers ideal for drying, either whilst in bloom or as seed heads, such as honesty, helipterums (aka everlastings or strawflowers), nigella, feverfew and physalis. See Everlastings by Bex Partridge for more inspiration (@botanical_tales).