Autumn is a time for warm natural colours
Autumn dried flowers are a low maintenance way to ring the changes for home decor. In the UK we start autumn with Harvest and end it with Bonfire Night. You might notice we included Harvest in our late summer page too, because it seems to span two seasons! Here in Britain, harvest time comes to an end in late August when the schools go back, but then we don’t tend to celebrate Harvest Festival until October.
ENTER SHOPGuy Fawkes celebrations come hot on the heels of Halloween on October 31st. Bonfire Night, November 5th, is the last big event of autumn before winter sets in and we start thinking about Christmas. This article about autumn dried flowers is adapted from Ruth’s blog at driedflowercraft.co.uk.
Autumn dried flowers, foliage and warm colours
It’s at this time of the year that nature’s colour palette changes from the last vibrant flowers of the summer to the warm hues of harvest golds and autumn leaves. I love being outside in the summer, but as the seasons change I just want to curl up indoors with a good book. And I like my surroundings to feel homely.
Home decor tends towards feelings of comfort at this time of year
Where the use of cold blues may help you to relax in summer, warm reds, oranges and yellows will help you feel cosy in the autumn and winter. Fallen leaves provide all the inspiration you need for a seasonal colour palette in russet oranges, rich chestnut browns, soft golds and earthy terracotta reds.
The first open fire of the year is always a big thing in our house where warming golds, oranges and reds again dominate. For us, Bonfire night and Guy Fawkes fireworks pave the way from Autumn into Winter. Where I live in Sussex, there’s a whole bonfire season with processions and public displays hosted by one town after another, spanning from September right through to late November.
Harvest displays of cereal crops
I’m contacted a lot at this time of year by customers who are putting together harvest thanksgiving displays for their local church or school. Traditionally we celebrate abundant crops in the UK a few weeks after the children have gone back to school.
Barley (above) is one crop commonly found in Great Britain, alongside Wheat and other cereals. I like to display these in the traditional way by making a wheat sheaf – I made the one in the pic below using both Barley and Wheat.
We can celebrate British farming by buying bunches of UK grown cereals such as:
- Oats
- Wheat
- Barley
Other grasses too are in warm shades of gold, beige and brown:
- Lagurus
- Quaking grass
- Miscanthus
Autumn dried flowers arranged in warm tones
Why not carry the harvest theme into your home by creating arrangements using cereal stems and grasses like the ones above, and bringing in shape and colour by adding dyed and natural flowers and foliage in seasonal shades.
In the pic above is the beginnings of an arrangement I made of autumn dried flowers with grasses: natural brown Lagurus, dyed green Lagurus, natural Quaking grass and Miscanthus and naturally pale green Oats. All it needs is some colour and form, and here’s some inspiration:
In the pic above left to right:
- Top row: Nigella seed pods, orange Lagurus, Poppy
- Middle row: Achillea, Quaking grass, Craspedia
- Bottom row: Miscanthus, Helichrysum flower heads for use in flower crowns and wreaths, deep red Amaranth.
Other flowers might include natural Carthamus (orange), Roses (red), Sanguisorba (red), Sanfordii (yellow), and Goldenrod (yellow).
Shop bunches by colourBy the way, the only dyed item in the above pic is the orange Lagurus to add some zing!
Shop dyed bunchesArchitectural forms of autumnal seed pods
You can often find seed heads and seed pods, like the Nigella above, in the garden at this time of year. Nigella is also known as Love-in-a-Mist and is common in the UK, so don’t be too hasty to tidy up for the winter! Other seed heads you might find in the garden are Poppy (pic below), Honesty, Fennel, Carrot, Allium or Ammi. I think that the architectural nature of these often brown stems means that they fit nicely into a soothing natural or minimalistic colour scheme.
Shop seed heads
Wishing you a happy harvest 🙂