Rich Autumn Colours

Autumn is a great time of year for the flower arranger, providing an abundance of colours and textures.

Spray Chrysanthemums are in flower along with Hydrangea, Sedum, Crocosmia (Montbretia), Solidago, Achillea (yarrow), and red hot poker (Kniphofia). Foliage takes on hues from gold through to rich burgundy with berries, seedpods and twigs providing interest and structure.

Decor and furnishing colours this year have been a bland mix of duck egg blue, greys, browns and even monochrome black and white. This combined with our terrible summer and lack of sunshine has left some of us desperate to inject some colour into our lives.

Hawthorn Berries

Nature provides this in abundance at this time of year with warming shades of, bronze, terracotta, red, ochre and rich browns. Berries and twigs are easy for the picking from the hedgerows and nuts such as acorns and conkers rain freely from the trees waiting to be gathered.

Acorns & oak leaves

Our Harvest Festivals produce some stunning arrangements, often incorporating fruit and vegetables of the season.

Halloween parties can allow us to let our imagination run riot, with contorted hazels and seed heads giving off spooky reflections by candlelight.

Decorated Chandelier

This wonderful and simple display from Country Living Magazine (USA version) makes use of small pumpkins, decorated and hung from a chandelier covered in twigs. Colourful leaves are hung in between to add a different dimension and it would be easy to add card cutouts of witches and ghosts to create a great look for Halloween.

Simple arrangements of different leaves can look quite stunning and are free of charge if you take a walk and do some gathering from the hedges and trees.

Leaf Wreath

Even some fallen leaves threaded on to a twig base, can make this fantastic autumn wreath for hanging on a wall or door or even as a centerpiece on a table with a candle holder in the middle.

Autumn Bouquet

The Americans love autumn or fall, halloween and Thanksgiving and most of these lovely displays are from the USA version of Country Living Magazine, but why not create your own arrangements and send us the images.

So why wait….go out and gather armfuls of autumn foliage, twigs and berries and show us what you can do. What’s more, with the state of the economic climate, most of this is for free!

Great ideas for pumpkin carving this Halloween

Pumpkin carving features