Diarmuid Gavin shows you how to cheer up your autumn garden with pots of style and happy hues

A stop by to your neighborhood backyard centre will shock you with how substantially flower electrical power is out there appropriate now. It’s time to revamp your window boxes, hanging baskets, pots and containers, and give them a clean lease of life.

What vegetation can be used to delight at this time of 12 months? Hardy bedding crops will give the most colour. Violas and pansies can really hold the display likely with their content, deal with-like flowers, and the range of petal colours is astonishing. Appear out for trailing varieties, which are so pretty in hanging baskets. Of class, you may well have been setting up in advance and sown them from seed in June, in which scenario they should really be all set for planting out now.

Brightly coloured polyanthus, primulas and Bellis perennis will also banish the blues — pack them in tightly for a lively display screen. Autumn is a good time to plant them so they can settle in right before wintertime. Cyclamens (pictured over) are great, not just for their vivid purple, pink and crystal-white bouquets but also the wonderful marbled foliage. Ornamental cabbages are quirky and pleasurable as effectively.

With all of these bedding plants, a great compost will make a big distinction. They really do not like drying out but they undoubtedly really do not want to be soggy both. For this rationale, bigger pots are improved if doable — little pots dry out so quickly. Make sure your container has drainage holes and set some old crocks at the bottom to end the compost finding waterlogged. If you have planted up containers of bulbs and the soil is bare on leading, these bedding plants will make them look jolly until finally next spring. A leading dressing of gravel can be a fantastic finishing touch.

As well as bedding, there is a vary of foliage crops that can enliven our planting strategies. Heucheras have a gorgeous vary of colors, from deep purples and pinks to oranges and limey greens, and I adore their ruffle shaped-leaves.

Evergreen sedges such as carex accommodate lifestyle in containers and make interesting focal factors. ‘Frosted Curls’ has striking silvery inexperienced foliage, though ‘Bowles’s Golden’ has gold-coloured foliage that curves gracefully.

There is no motive to have bare pots in winter — containers are miniature gardens that can be planted to delight all 12 months spherical, and it’s by no means been much more significant than this calendar year to have mother nature near at hand.

Plant of the week

Miscanthus sinensis ‘Ferner Osten’
Late-flowering decorative grasses are searching fantastic now. Miscanthus only actually receives developing in early summer time but by midsummer can reach a peak of 1.5m. A row of these can make an intriguing hedge. It is herbaceous so it will die again, but you can go away the flower heads during winter season.

Reader Q&A

I have a challenge with toadstools and mushrooms in my backyard, and this 12 months there look to be a whole lot a lot more. I was wanting to know if you could enable me to get rid of them. Some of them are product, some of them orange and pink, and some are nearly black. — Michael

Toadstools are the fruit of fungi residing below the ground. Commonly, they are a healthful and organic element of the ecosystem. There is no fungicide offered to destroy them off, so your most effective guess is to don a pair of gloves and chuck them all in a bin bag. Or you could learn to like them — some of them are pretty fascinating noticed close up! They will return, but most likely not once again until eventually this time up coming year.

Post your gardening questions to Diarmuid by using his Instagram @diarmuidgavin working with the hashtag #weekendgarden