November sees the nights draw in and the weather worsen – but it can still start colourfully in the gardens at Englefield if the hard frosts have held off.

Flowers planted in the box borders, with the mellow stone of Englefield House as a backdrop to set them off, give a late burst of brightness even on dull days.

Anemone x hybrida, or Japanese anemones, Asters, Salvias, Dahlias and Chrysanthemums all provide late season colour when many other plants have finished flowering.

The Englefield Estate in West Berkshire is noted for its magnificent trees. In November, especially in a milder Autumn without too much wind, there is still plenty of colour left in the leaves of the Acers, Oaks, Liquidamber and Cotinus coggyria.

Berries bring bursts of brightness to the woodland edges with the bright pink of Euonymus alatus or burning bush and the purple jewel-like berries of Callicarpa bodinerii standing out against the darker woodland background.

Some plants are still flowering strongly, including Viburnum bodnantense and Viburnum tinus.  And while Camellias are generally seen as a spring flowering plant, Camellia sasanqua flowers in the autumn and more than holds its own with its earlier flowering cousins.

Even when the colour has faded from the flowers and leaves in the Estate’s gardens and woodland there is still beauty to be enjoyed.

The flaking bark of Acer griseum or paperbark maple, with its bright orange colour, contrasts beautifully with the stark bright white trunk and boughs of the Betula utilis var. also known as the Himalayan or Kashmir birch. The glowing red stems of Cornus sanguinea or Dogwood, also add interest at this time of year.

At Englefield there has been a conscious move towards managing the Estate in tune with the environment and that extends to the garden where Head Gardener Susan Broughton joined other staff in 2023 to undertake a carbon literacy training course which helped the Estate to earn Silver status as a Carbon Literate Organisation.

Among the measures taken in the garden include a reduction in digging and tilling and allowing some areas to become wild for the benefit of insect life and the birds and other creatures which rely on the insects.

Susan says: “Autumn is a good month to start preparing the garden for wintertime, but don’t be too tidy and allow those insects that overwinter to hibernate in plant stems and under leaf litter.”