Top 10+ plants to grow in October to bring winter colour to your garden

Daphne is one such shrub that will add pops of pink to borders during winter - Jacky Parker Photography/Moment RF

October offers perfect conditions for planting. The soil is warm and encouraging, and morning and evening dews refresh planting. There are likely to be rainy days as well, once autumn arrives. Winter light is glorious: it enhances colour and picks up every fine detail, whether it’s bark, stem or seed head; and there’s plenty of fragrance wafting through the air on warmer afternoons. Subtle winter flowers, designed to resist harsh weather, will satisfy those early-flying pollinators in need of sustenance.

If you’re on heavy ground, and your soil has a clay content, it’s important to prepare the ground by digging a hole roughly twice as large as the plant’s root ball. You can add some grit to the hole, or plant slightly above the ground, to aid drainage. This method avoids creating a sump that collects water. Those on lighter ground can simply plant, but if the root ball is dry, add a can of water before you backfill – and find a bright position, to make sure that these gems catch the winter sun.

The best 10 plants to grow now

Clematis

Clematis cirrhosa is an early-flowering variety that has unusual flecked petals - C J Wheeler/Alamy Stock Photo

Clematis cirrhosa var. balearica is a winter-flowering climber, notable as a bumblebee magnet in the early months of the year. It combines dark, ferny foliage and pale creamy-green bells delicately spotted in maroon. The label “balearica” (think Mallorca) indicates the need for a warm wall, preferably south-facing.

After hot summers it may lose its foliage and play dead, but it always recovers in time for Christmas. The combination of almost black foliage and pale flowers is a visual treat on a bleak day whether it’s framing a doorway or a window. “Freckles”, which has larger pale flowers brightly freckled in red, is a sparser climber – although this will flower in November. Autumn and winter flowers are then replaced by fluffy seed heads in spring – truly a climber for all seasons. Lightly tidy, but don’t prune.

Daphne

Not only do daphne blooms open in late winter, but they also have a strong floral perfume - Jacky Parker Photography/GettyImages

Daphne bholua is a winter-flowering species that produces clusters of waxy, highly fragrant flowers in pink or white in January. There are several forms because this Himalayan species varies greatly in the wild, according to altitude. I’ve found the evergreens easier to grow than the deciduous ones such as ‘Gurkha’, and their year-round foliage is an added bonus on bleaker days. The most lauded of all is “Jacqueline Postill”, a columnar shaped pink.

This was spotted as a chance seedling by Alan Postill in the early 1980s, when Alan was chief propagator at Hillier Nurseries in Hampshire. A sensible chap, he named it after his wife. “Mary Rose”, also an excellent evergreen, has tighter clusters of purple-pink flowers and it’s later to flower.

Hayloft Plants stocks ‘Mary Rose’ (in 9cm pots) and Junker’s Nursery sells a full range of mature daphne plants.

Pussy willow

The fluffy pink catkins of the ‘Mount Aso’ pussy willow are ideal for bringing colour to the winter garden - Alex Manders/iStockphoto

Salix gracilistyla “Mount Aso” takes on a translucent quality in winter sunlight and this Japanese variety one has pink, tactile bobbles held all along the stems. It can reach three metres in height and width, or 10 feet, but you won’t be able to resist picking the stems for the house. Grey-green foliage follows and bumblebees love collecting the pollen. There’s also a black pussy willow named “Melanostachys”.

Cornus

Cornus sanguinea is popular for its red-orange stems - mike jarman/Alamy Stock Photo

Cornus sanguinea “Anny’s Winter Orange” AGM produces colourful stems that glow in winter light. If planted in a sunny position, this variety will produce the best flickering light show. It’s a selected form of a dogwood found in Korea and Siberia, so hardiness is assured, and the stems have touches of yellow and pink among the orange-reds. The foliage is butter-yellow in autumn. Prune gently in spring, to encourage bright new growth. It will reach four feet at most, so it’s suitable for a small garden.

Epimedium

Epimedium ‘Spine Tingler’ has narrow, toothed foliage that opens in bronze-pink before deepening to green - RM Floral/Alamy Stock Photo

Epimedium “Spine Tingler” AGM comes into its own in winter, when the jagged edges of the arrowhead-shaped leaves tremble on dark wiry stems. “Spine Tingler” (such a good name) is grown for its exceptional foliage, so don’t cut the leaves off in autumn, although you might give it the occasional tidy.

It’s easy to grow, for this foot-high epimedium was collected on a cliff in Sichuan in China before being introduced in 2008, from America. I have to say that the lemon-yellow flowers add very little!

Polypodium

Hardy evergreen ferns, like Polypodium cambricum, can be relied on to maintain interest in garden borders - Sabena Jane Blackbird/Alamy Stock Photo

Polypodium cambricum has the best winter foliage of any hardy fern, because the new fronds appear from late August or September, following a four-month period of summer dormancy. That’s why the fronds look so pristine in winter.

The holy grail is “Richard Kayse” because the fronds have a 3D profile reminiscent of miniature fir trees. However, there are plenty of others, all offering fresh bright-green foliage in winter, and they include the similar Polypodium glycyrrhiza.

Pampas grass

Cortaderia selloana ‘Pumila’ is a perennial, evergreen grass that adds structure to borders in every season - Olga Seyfutdinova/Alamy Stock Photo

Cortaderia selloana “Pumila” AGM is far too good a grass solely for bungalow lawns, because the cream-white plumes form upright exclamation marks in autumn before fading beautifully and gracefully into winter. “Pumila” is a manageable height, up to five feet, but if you’ve got space, go for a taller one such as ‘Sunningdale Silver’.

Snowdrops

Snowdrops, such as Galanthus elwesii ‘Mrs Macnamara’, tend to bloom from January and February - TonyBaggett/iStockphoto

Galanthus elwesii “Mrs Macnamara” AGM is an early-flowering snowdrop that blooms reliably every Christmas and it bulks up well too, so it’s worth seeking out.

Plant the bulbs under a tree, or near shrubs, and the bold single white flowers, held on stems that top six inches in height, will delight you. The grey-green foliage is well behaved and narrower than typical. If you can’t find “Mrs Macnamara” there are many other named forms of G. elwesii that flower early on, including a six-petalled Tiffany lamp named “Godfrey Owen”. You’ll also find lots of different varieties in garden centres, too.

Honeysuckle

‘Winter Beauty’ is an early-flowering fragrant honeysuckle - Deborah Vernon/Alamy Stock Photo

Lonicera x purpusii ‘Winter Beauty’ AGM is a non-climbing winter honeysuckle that begins to produce sweetly scented cream-white flowers in January and the stems also pick well. It’s a large shrub and a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde, because it’s rather untidy in summer. It’s perfect on a garden boundary though, along with the upright and richly-fragrant Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’. The hyacinth scent from the pink flowers is outstanding in November. Both are widely available.

Witch hazel

Witch hazel shrubs vary in colour, but most have yellow to bronze spidery flowers with a delicate fragrance - annick vanderschelden photography/Moment RF

Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Pallida’ AGM requires deep soil, but this witch hazel has freesia-scented flowers in palest yellow. It’s a hybrid, so more vigorous than its parents, and it’s one of the most spectacular because the large spidery flowers stand out well, even on the dullest day. There are also oranges and reds, but they often get lost in the background. ‘Pallida’ sells on sight, especially so if you get near enough to smell it, too.

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