Scorched garden after the heatwave? £19.97 plant bundle brings colour back for autumn

After the summer we’ve had, some gardens are looking less “late-summer glow” and more scorched lawn, frazzled pots and borders that have given up entirely.

If you’re staring at a sea of straw-coloured grass and wondering how to get some colour back without spending a fortune, autumn bedding plants can be one of the quickest fixes. And YouGarden has launched a 30-plant Bright Autumn & Winter Collection for £19.97 that looks particularly well timed.

The collection normally costs £29.97, so the current price represents a £10 saving, while YouGarden Club members can get it for £16.97. It is available to pre-order now for delivery from late August.

That works out at roughly 67p per plant at the standard £19.97 price, making it an affordable way to refresh pots, hanging baskets, window boxes and tired-looking borders as summer colour starts to disappear.

And unlike the tender summer bedding that can rapidly surrender once temperatures drop, this mix has been put together specifically to keep going through colder, wetter weather.

The Bright Autumn & Winter Collection contains 30 garden-ready plants, with 10 each of pansies, violas and wallflowers.

There are Pansy ‘Tango Magic’ plants with vivid orange flowers, Viola Sorbet ‘Tiger Eyes’ with golden blooms marked by dramatic dark veining, and the Wallflower ‘Sunset Tutti Frutti’ Mix, which brings fiery shades and a sweet honey-like fragrance.

Together they should provide a much-needed blast of colour from autumn into spring, with the pansies and violas particularly suited to keeping displays looking lively through the colder months.

The plants are also garden ready rather than tiny plugs, so they can go straight into their final pots, baskets or borders. That makes the 30-plant autumn bedding bundle for £19.97 an easy option if you want a fast seasonal makeover rather than another gardening project that takes weeks to show results.

There is a practical benefit beyond appearances, too. The wallflowers offer early nectar for bees and butterflies as spring returns, while several of the varieties are fragrant as well as colourful.

YouGarden recommends regularly deadheading spent flowers and removing yellowing leaves to encourage more blooms and keep displays looking their best.

No amount of bedding plants is going to turn a scorched lawn green overnight. But for anyone whose garden has taken a battering during a hot, dry summer, 30 bright, hardy plants could provide a fairly cheap distraction while the grass works on its comeback.