If your garden is looking a little brown, it’s time to embrace it

By the start of March, gardens can start to feel bare, bleached and, dare I say it, lifeless. Especially when there has been as little rain as we have had in most parts of Victoria over the last couple of months. Officially it might be autumn, but it will be many long weeks before we can rely on the season of cool nights and fiery leaves to spice things up.

So what to do in the meantime? Pay attention to gardens that have got it right, to the ones with late summer flowers still billowing in the breeze, fruits and vegetables ripening and brilliant berries breaking out.

People often focus on how their garden looks in spring but the best gardens incorporate plants that hit their stride in late summer and early autumn. This continuous drama takes forethought and you need to plan for it. But with careful plant selection and placement, thoughtful stewardship and good soil care, it is perfectly possible to have a garden that feels dynamic and lively even in the dying days of the warmest months.

Asters, agastaches, ornamental oreganos and sedums are just some of the dry-tolerant perennials that continue flowering from late summer into autumn. Spring-flowering alliums might be long gone but the loose purple explosions of Allium carinatum subsp. pulchellum are just hitting their straps.

Daylilies can start flowering again around now while for sheer attention-grabbing magnificence, it’s hard to go past a dahlia, which is still flaunting flowers in almost every shape, size and colour.

Golden everlastings will look gorgeous for ages yet, while nasturtiums are still rambling all over without a care in the world. Deadhead salvias and your efforts will pay you back in spades with whole new flushes of flowers opening up.

The aim – as always – is to keep close tabs, to take timely action and to maintain a variety of textures, colours and forms. The more varied the plant life in your patch, the better it looks and the more ecological function it has.

Although most of us don’t want too much brown at this point in early March, a touch of the tawny is good, so don’t be too quick to whip out the old. There is value in at least some falling leaves, hollowing stems and skeletal seed heads not only for aesthetics but because it provides sustenance and habitat for pollinators.