Transitioning from summer to autumn can be challenging for any gardener looking to retain the picture-postcard garden of midsummer. However, a few well-chosen plants mean summer can be extended into the early autumn months as the weather turns cooler and days grow shorter.

COLOURFUL CONTAINERS
Containers planted in May with the classic mix of half-hardy plants will still look good if you have been regularly watering, feeding and deadheading. For autumn, add a touch of extra spice with flowering plants such as Dahlia ‘Hot Chocolate’ and ‘Twyning’s White Chocolate’, which will flower until the first frosts.

Now is a good time to pot tubers and winter them in a frost-free space for next year. Cannas such as ‘Durban’ and ‘Bengal Tiger’ make excellent foliage plants. In early autumn, they produce massive spikes of showy flowers followed by large red seed pods containing hard black seed; these give rise to the plant’s common name, the Indian shot. The seeds are so hard they were used instead of lead shot. For a good display in winter, fill containers with evergreens or plants with attractive stems or berries. Try heucheras, ivies, euonymus fortunei, bergenias or skimmias. Winter-flowering heathers are also lovely but require an ericaceous compost.

Remember to position plants close together in the container, as they will not grow much during the winter. Place containers where they will receive the most sunshine and group them together for protection and maximum impact. Raise pots off the ground with bricks or pot feet for better drainage.

PICTURESQUE PONDS
Ponds are havens for wildlife in the garden, but often by autumn, there is a mass of foliage with few flowers. Removing dead foliage, cleaning off blanket weed from the sides of ponds and thinning any plants that have outgrown their space will help maintain water quality. To add colour, try Thalia dealbata, which has vast blue-green upward pointing leaves topped with heads of purple flowers. Many of the new cultivars of water lily are at their best now. Look for Nymphaea ‘Texas Dawn’, which adds a rich pink cast to its yellow flowers as the nights shorten. 

Autumn is the perfect time to encourage hibernating hedgehogs and over-wintering insects into your garden. So if possible, leave a small area of your garden untouched – it will provide a valuable site for these creatures.

BRIGHT BORDERS
Shrubs add structure to the garden, providing a backdrop for other plants and some work hard to give an all-year-round display. Callicarpa bodinieri var. giraldii ‘Profusion’ is one such plant; it is deciduous and will grow to three metres tall. It has pretty bronze new growth and pink flowers in the summer. In autumn, it is festooned with violet, bead-like berries, which can last until Christmas. Disanthus cercidifolius is one of the best shrubs for autumn colour, as it turns a glorious burgundy red, followed by small starfish-like red flowers, with a mild odour of wintergreen. 

SHOWY SHRUBS
Deadheading and staking the herbaceous border will keep it looking tidy. Then, strategically place pots of Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora ‘Emily McKenzie’ to add a splash of colour – also perfect as cut flowers for vases as they last at least fourteen days. No herbaceous border should be without Sedum spectabile because its icy grey foliage is a good foil for earlier flowering plants. Mixing ‘Stardust’, a white form, with ‘Neon’, a vivid pink, provides a pretty colour and appeals to butterflies.