Although I’m not quite ready to say goodbye to the summer, clues of a changing season are all around us.
The honks of Canada geese moving to different feeding grounds, the cooler evening temperatures and shortening daylight hours remind us that we too are part of this seasonal cycle.
I particularly enjoy observing the transition of late summertime colours into early autumnal hues. In the New Forest, its iconic heathlands are still a beautiful and bright colour palette of dusky pinks, mauve and lavender, however the browns and burnt orangeness of their dead blooms add a splash of early autumn warmth.
It’s this special ‘analogous’ combination, the harmonious variation, of the cool tints, tones and shades of the colour violet adjacent to the warm tones of red-violet, red and red-orange that evoke emotional responses. The autumn palette of warm, rich and earthy colours is associated with nostalgia which brings about feelings of richness, comfort and calmness. I certainly find myself reminiscing about past autumns and memories of the season. Understanding colour psychology is fascinating!
Always being guided by nature, I take inspiration from my surroundings to create natural floral designs. Using cut flowers grown in my allotment, I therefore loved creating this colourful design – a late summer tribute to heather heathlands. The bubble gum pink of the cross-leaved heath and paler pinks of common ‘ling’ heather together with the rich deep purples of the bell heather and burnt orange of the dead flower blooms were reproduced using a combination of Zinna elegans, Scabiosa, Dahlia ‘Copper Boy’, Amaranthus and Rudbeckia ‘Autumn Colours’.
When I look at this design, I see the radiating evening warmth of a hot late summer’s day and those rich, warm colour tones that you can only experience during the last hour before sunset.
So before the autumn colours really kick in, make sure you take time to appreciate summer’s last vibes and warm embrace.