Your Autumn Planting Guide with Soto Gardens

This is Your Garden's Creative Moment. Cooler days, softer light, and still-warm soil make autumn the perfect time to plant. Borders can be refreshed, gaps filled, and containers styled to shine—by the front door, on a terrace, or along a window ledge.

We’ve teamed up with Soto Gardens to guide you through autumn planting. From strong structure and colour to texture and seasonal highlights, Soto Gardens show how to make every corner of your garden feel considered and full of life. Over to the experts...

Passing the Spade: Autumn Planting with Soto Gardens

At Soto Gardens, autumn is the perfect moment to get planting. Above ground, growth slows, but beneath the surface, root systems quietly extend, anchoring plants for winter and giving them a flying start in spring. With summer heat behind us, there are fewer pests, and steady rainfall helps plants settle with minimal stress.

Layering Structure and Colour

When we design planting collections, we always start with structure, then layer in colour, texture, and seasonal highlights. The same principle works just as well whether you’re filling a border or styling a container.

• Evergreen structure: Pittosporum ‘Golf Ball’, Ilex Domes and Kew Green – the anchor plants that hold the scene together.
• Big-impact shrubs: Hydrangea ‘Annabelle’ or ‘Limelight’ with their standout blooms, or Sweetbox for its winter scent, not only provide year-round structure but also bring seasonal drama and a lasting sense of character to your outside space.
• Long-lasting perennials: Astrantia Star of Billion, Salvia Caradonna, Catmint, and Rozanne are all long flowering plants that bring stunning colour from spring to the autumn, year after year. 
• Grasses for movement and light: Mexican Feather Frass, Japanese Forest Grass and Irish Green bring texture and softness. 
• Bulbs for early-season pops: Tulips, Daffodils and Alliums provide pops of colour and drama from early spring, into the summer.
• Trees for height: Olive and Bay trees not only provide height along a border or a point of interest in a garden, but they look fabulous by a front door.

Planting in autumn gives your garden the time it needs to settle and thrive, so when spring arrives, everything feels established, full, and effortlessly beautiful.

Six Ideas to Transform Your Garden This Autumn

Each idea pairs a planting scheme with a Garden Trading planter, thoughtfully chosen to create balance and year-round interest.

1) Add Kerb Appeal with...
Planters: Pair of Foxham Planters
Planting:  Bay Tree with Ivy underplanting
Why it works: Low-maintenance evergreen combination adds gravitas to your front doorstep.

2) Welcome Wildlife with...
Planters: Brockwell Planters
Planting palette: Lavender, Catmint and Mexican Feather Grass
Why it works: Nectar-rich flowers feed pollinators, while grasses add texture and movement.

3) Brighten Ledges with...
Planter: Vence Window Box Planter
Planting: Soto House window collection continues the purple-and-white palette of the Soto House border collection. Evergreen Ilex Domes provide structure, while Lavender adds dramatic colour.
Why it works: Neat, low-maintenance, visually striking.

4) Elevate Courtyards with...
Planters: Draycott
Planting: Autumn fern, Hart’s Tongue, Ostrich fern
Why it works: Ferns bring warm, natural texture and tones to low-light areas.

5) Effortlessly upgrade with...
Planters/Beds: Malmesbury Planters Set of 3
Planting: Soto House White 3 set collection, frothy Hydrangeas, standout Astrantia Shaggy, Ilex anchors.
Why it works: Sophisticated and timeless, blends with classic and modern interiors. 

Planting the Soto Way

Guiding Principles:

• Cohesion: Colours and textures complement each other naturally
• Seasonal rhythm: Something interesting in every season, from winter scent to summer bloom
• Balance of form: Evergreens for structure, perennials for softness, grasses for movement

Planting in autumn is a quiet investment in the seasons to come. Beneath the soil, roots are settling, structures forming, and the promise of spring already taking shape. By planting thoughtfully now—with evergreens for structure, grasses for texture, and bulbs for surprise—you create a garden that feels lived-in from the very first day of spring. With the right containers and a balanced palette, even the smallest corner can hold interest through every season.