November 20th, 2019 - Autumn cottage garden, Colour in the garden

It’s amazing how in late November there are so many colourful touches in this garden from not only furniture but also from plants and little additions here and there.

Purple, red and gold

This miscanthus looks fabulous every autumn and through the winter. I cut it to the ground in Feb and up it comes again.

Orange, purple and golden yellow

Here I’ve tucked artificial Chinese lantern stems  (from Sarah Raven) into the trachelospermum by the front door.

Red, green and golden yellow

And to the left I’ve tucked stems of artificial berries (also SR) on the other side.  The berries look quite real but it wouldn’t matter if they didn’t.

I scraped the moss out of the gutters and threw the bucketful under the shrubs.  It looks lovely and more importantly must be full of insect food for the birds.  The robins and blackbirds are rummaging around in there already.  Such lovely stuff.

Green and more green

I collected the fallen acer leaves from a neighbour’s tree and carried them back to my lair.

Dozens of shades of gold and brown

Here they are below, thrown onto the borders to not only make a golden blanket for the plants but to also make a habitat for insects which are then food for birds.  Everybody wins.

Warmth for the plants and shelter for creatures

And lastly here below is a small beech shrub in a pot looking fabulous before the leaves drop, after which it’s just a bunch of twigs in a pot until the Spring.

Bronze beech leaves

You can read about my colourful garden furniture here when I had a brief spot on BBC TV talking about gardening.  In such a small garden which I look out on every day of the year I get colour from pots, warm bricks, bistro tables and chairs and of course lots and lots of green.