A Craving for Colour: Finding brightness in autumn’s greys
Autumnal low cloud over Windermere in the Lake District
It’s the first week of October and I’ve been on tour in the Lake District. Everything about the week has whispered that autumn has arrived — from the low morning mist over the lakes to mushrooms pushing up around fallen trees. There has been an air of greyness about the place: cloud pressing down on the fells, enveloping, softening. With it comes a muting of colour, and I find myself craving brightness.
Porcelain fungi on a fallen log in the Lake District
When I visited RHS Rosemoor in the summer I wrote about their gardens dedicated to tones — one hot, the other cool. Then, the hot garden’s abundance felt too much. Reds, oranges, and yellows seemed to shout at me, overwhelming in their intensity. The cool garden, by contrast, was restful: a balm for the senses, with its silvers, blues and whites mirrored in the still pool.
Cool tones at RHS Rosemoor, with blues and greens mirrored in the water
Now, with coolness in abundance all around me, it is the hot colours I long for. Something to lift the spirits on a damp and dreary day. It took some seeking out, but dahlias, crocosmia, begonias and hollyhocks came to the rescue. They reminded me that it doesn’t take much — no long border or whole garden of colour required. Just one bold, beautiful flower can light up the day. Shocking pink, fiery orange — I’ll take it all and more.
Hot tones in abundance: begonias blazing pink, red, orange and yellow
And perhaps that is the lesson. How I feel about a place is often less about its intrinsic qualities and more about whether it meets what I happen to need at that moment. A garden may be exquisitely designed, its planting remarkable — but all of that can pass me by if it doesn’t answer my mood, here and now.
And so, in the soft greys of October, I found myself lifted not by whole landscapes, but by a single flower burning bright against the season.
A single dahlia burning bright against autumn’s greys