Embracing Autumn: How to Get Your Garden Ready for the New Season

As summer begins to wind down, many gardens start to lose their vibrancy. But autumn isn’t a time for fading displays—it’s an opportunity to celebrate rich colours, longer-lasting blooms, and even prepare for the beauty of winter. With the right plants, your garden can be full of life, fragrance, and colour from September all the way through to next spring.

Here are some of our favourite ways to keep your outdoor space looking stunning as the seasons shift—plus four top plant picks that thrive in the cooler months.

1. Keep Containers Bursting with Blooms 🌼

Autumn is the perfect time to refresh your pots and containers with hardy plants that will keep flowering as temperatures drop. Compact varieties are especially valuable when space is tight, and nothing does it better than:

✨ Hydrangea paniculata ‘Little Spooky’ (4.5 Litre)
Don’t be fooled by its petite size—Little Spooky is small but mighty! At just 50cm tall, this dwarf hydrangea produces oversized, dome-shaped blooms in crisp apple-white that last from July well into autumn. Perfect for containers, patios, or small gardens, this fully hardy shrub ensures a standout display year after year.

2. Celebrate Colourful Foliage 🍁

When we think of autumn, it’s not just flowers that bring the magic—it’s the foliage. Plants that offer changing leaf colour bring warmth and drama to your garden as the season deepens.

✨ Ceratostigma ‘Forest Blue’ (3 Litre)
This RHS Award of Garden Merit winner is a true gem for autumn gardens. From August to October, it dazzles with vivid blue flowers that pop against red-tinted stems. As the season cools, the foliage turns fiery shades of orange and red, creating a breathtaking multi-season display. Whether in borders or pots, Forest Blue earns its place as an autumn essential.

3. Add Instant Seasonal Impact 💜

If you’re looking for an instant hit of colour right now, asters are your go-to. They’re reliable perennials that burst into life just when other flowers are starting to fade.

✨ Aster ‘Double Blue’ (2 x 3 Litre)
These large, established plants deliver masses of double deep-blue to purple blooms from late August right through October (and sometimes beyond). Perfect for beds, borders, or containers, they’re especially eye-catching placed either side of a doorway or patio to welcome visitors with a burst of seasonal charm.

4. Don’t Forget the Winter Garden 🌞

Great gardeners know that planning ahead is key. By planting now, you can enjoy a wave of colour and fragrance in the depths of winter, when you need it most.

✨ Coronilla ‘Citrina’ (4.5 Litre)
A fully hardy, evergreen shrub with year-round structure and interest, Citrina steals the spotlight in winter. From December to April, it produces clusters of lemon-yellow, pea-like flowers with a delightful sweet fragrance—just what you need to brighten the grey days. With its RHS Award of Garden Merit, you can count on this plant to perform beautifully year after year.

Final Thoughts 🍃

Autumn isn’t the end of your garden’s story—it’s the beginning of a whole new chapter. With the right combination of compact hydrangeas, fiery foliage, late-flowering asters, and winter-blooming gems, you can enjoy a garden that delights through every season.

So why not embrace the change in season and plant now for colour, fragrance, and structure that will last well into next year?