Late-summer pastels

WHILE hot colours come to the fore in late summer, there’s no need to ditch a pastel-coloured planting scheme. Instead of fiery oranges, vibrant reds and golden yellows, there are plenty of cool-toned flowers for this time of year; and not only will soft pinks, lavender blues and lemon yellows provide a more subtle last hurrah to the season, they’re also ideally suited to the changing light, cooler temperatures and morning dews that become the norm as summer merges into autumn.

Pastel simply means pale-coloured, and refers to hues that have a low level of colour pigmentation. Artists create pastel colours by adding more white to lessen the intensity of the paint on their palette. In nature, they occur