No change of seasons feels as noticeable to me as the shift from summer to autumn. The days shorten and a sense of closing is in the air. Certainly in the garden, many plants begin to die back pinks, verdant greens, and blues begin to be replaced by golden browns, reds, and yellows. I find a sense of calm in the slowing down, despite work often offering no such respite. Yet there are many plants that are finding their moment in early autumn, continuing a long season of flowering, extended floral interest into September, October and sometimes beyond. If not flowers, then seedheads, or like ornamental grasses, ‘that look good in death’ as Piet Oudolf puts it, become a thing of beauty in autumn.

A regeneration project improving biodiversity, economy, and water management in a disconnected part of the city.

Katy Merrington, the first Cultural Gardener at the Hepworth, describes the garden as ‘…a place designed for care and beauty, where we can come together, it is a social space as much as it is a physical one.’

Everywhere you walk in a city like Amsterdam, it feels like someone has put a plant in a humble pot to brighten up their corner of the city.

Careful garden and planting design can play a key role in the slow down of water run-off, easing the increasing pressures on the sewer system, and helping to reduce the threat of flooding.

Against a backdrop of increasing tension in the fight against environmental collapse, a new trend in naturalistic planting is taking place…