COURGETTES, COROKIA AND CORNFLOWERS

Autumn is the time of plenty. The birds get to fill their bellies with berries and seeds, we get to fill our fridge and freezer with homegrown goodness, and the flower garden is determined to bloom in the last of the warm months. I hope you are also enjoying a bountiful autumn garden.

Autumn is my favourite time of year. In the months of March, April and May, the weather finally settles into a late “summer”. The garden comes to life again after the heat (usually!) of summer, and it is a lovely time to make the most of the outdoors before the days grow shorter and cooler.

When the perennials start to hibernate for winter, ideally there will be a strong structure of lasting evergreen shrubs and a bold framework of bare winter trunks and branches to decorate the window view. That is the aim of thoughtful landscape design — creating a garden that looks good in every season.

A fabulous centuries‑old trick is the evergreen clipped dwarf hedge bordering a path or entrance to the house. No matter what goes on behind the hedge, there is always a tidy edge that hides the fading perennials and the weeds that got away over the busy months.

For a natural (non‑formal) garden, a swathe of evergreen grasses like Lomandra ‘Tanika’ or our own NZ native Carex testacea will look gorgeous surrounding the bare trunks of trees and lining the entrance path to the house. These simple landscape choices create softness, movement and year‑round structure.

With the above in mind, autumn is a perfect time for planting. With a little consideration, in just a few months there can be a lovely garden to greet you when you get home, or to be viewed from the house on a cool winter’s day. With a touch of lighting to highlight these design features, your garden won’t disappear into the long winter night at the end of the day.

So while the native birds gobble up the Corokia berries, and you are stacking the firewood, picking cornflowers for the vase and harvesting the courgettes, take a moment to think about the little landscape changes you could make before winter.