▷ Fall patio decorations and pumpkin coffee recipe

The terrace decor will brighten up even the gloomiest autumn day, she’s sure of it Mackone songcut flower farm “The gardens of Sofia” founder. Take a look at his terrace: beautiful both in summer and winter. Find out what design principles he applies, what flowers and decorations he uses and get inspiration for your terrace:

The three color rule

When creating terrace furniture, Daina follows a simple rule: less is more. And we’re not talking about minimalism: this terrace is full of potted plants in all seasons. To avoid chaos, Daina chooses no more than three colors. In this way you can use many plants and many furnishing details. Limiting the color palette will allow you to combine everything, the terrace decor will look harmonious. We will show you different combinations from the Daina terrace.

Color matching can be easily learned by yourself. I highly recommend our remote seminar “Color matching in the courtyard” with landscape architect Lina Puodžiūta Ragauskiene. The workshop is inexpensive, not long, but at the same time it is a complete guide to matching plants by color. The seminar is remote, so you can start now.

One plant per pot rule

Song usually doesn’t plant many different plants in one large pot.

Instead, he chooses smaller pots, planting only one type of plant in each. For example, 20 pink tulips of the same variety are planted in one pot. On the other: 5 identical blue pansies.

The terrace decor is created by many pots of this type, placed next to each other.

This cultivation method has advantages:

It is easy to create compositions, because after arranging the vases, you can visually see if it was done well;
It’s easy to update and edit the image: you just need to move the pots or add new ones;
Plants that look less than decorative after flowering can be removed without any transplanting: just move the pots elsewhere. This is especially true with wilted tulips and frozen chrysanthemums,
You can include indoor plants in the composition, vacationing on the terrace in the summer.

Below I share examples seen on the Daina terrace in different seasons.

Spring terrace decor

For the spring decoration of the terrace, Daina chooses pansies and bulbous flowers: bluebells and tulips. How to plant tulips in pots and where to store the pots during the winter, Dinos’ advice can be found here.

For the spring composition, Daina chose 3 colors: purple, blue and peach. In the photo you can see that she also did not mix plants of different colors, so the repeated colors look harmonious.

Summer terrace decoration

In the summer the terrace drowned in a sea of orphans. The purple pansies were complemented by white pansies. The following plants also appeared on the terrace:

Guboja (Gypsophila panicola) ‘Festival White Flare’
Bakopa (Bacopa Sutera cordata) ‘Double White’
Holcus mollis (Holcus mollis)
Lakišius (Bidens)
Miulenbekija (Muehlenbeckia complexa)
Žilė (Senecio candicans) ‘Angel’s Wings’

In summer, 2 colors prevailed on the terrace: white and purple. The effect of whiteness was also completed by the fabrics: mattresses for cots and white bedspreads.

You can find more ideas for potted plants in the remote laboratory “Creating modern vase compositions” — here we talk about more interesting plants and composition rules that you can apply to create elegant compositions in your vases.

Autumn decoration of the terrace

For autumn beauty, Daina added a round boxwood and towering chrysanthemums that replicate the shape of the olive trees and rosemary, which are still preserved on the terrace in October. Boxwood and chrysanthemum were placed in wicker baskets together with plastic vases and pumpkins were added to the composition.

Here too the principle of 3 colors is maintained: green, orange and brick prevail.

When the chrysanthemums freeze, it will be easy to remove the pots and replace them with others.

Daina used narrow, elongated flowerbeds to decorate the exterior window sills. They put heather, ivy and chrysanthemums in it along with all the plastic pots, and spike-dried hydrangea inflorescences so that the spaces between the pots were not visible.

Added some small pumpkins on top to bring out the white, green and brown combination.

Such a composition is easy to adapt and complement, for example, with fir trees, pine cones or even garlands of light bulbs as the winter holidays approach.

The intimacy of the terrace all year round

Coziness on the terrace is created not only by plants, but also by fabrics: soft sun mattresses, cushions, various coverings.

In the summer these items are fairly common, but you can’t forget them on a warmer fall day, Daina says.

When the weather is nice, he always tries to take the opportunity to drink his favorite pumpkin spice coffee on the terrace. If you’re tempted, Daina shares the recipe.

Pumpkin spice coffee

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons with a little pumpkin puree (the pumpkin should be cut into cubes and boiled for 10-15 minutes over low heat);
1 teaspoon honey;
1 scraped teaspoon of spice mix (nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves)
a pinch of vanilla;
a pinch of black pepper;
2 glasses of milk (or vegetable milk);
2 cups of espresso coffee or a teaspoon of soluble chicory.

How we produce:

Place the pumpkin puree, all the spices and honey in a pan and cook for 2 minutes over low heat, stirring constantly.

Pour in the milk and heat until boiling.

We pour the mass from the saucepan into the blender and shake everything.

We prepare 2 cups of espresso coffee, pour it into 2 tall glasses and fill it with a whipped mixture of pumpkin, milk and spices.

If we prepare the drink with chicory instead of coffee, we pour the chicory directly into the blender together with the milk, spices and pumpkin pulp. Shake and pour into glasses.