Ideas for some instant Autumn colour please

Have some empty space and would like a quick splash of colour, but bit stuck for ideas. Pot mums maybe or something similar ?

Violas have such a long flowering season and you can choose a colour scheme to suit your taste. They are available everywhere. I bought some frilly pansies last year and the scent was gorgeous - I had some in buckets hooked on a trellis arch at the front door. I understand that some think they are gaudy - I used to - but I plant muted colours and they really lift the garden at this time of year.

Christopher-wallflowers for autumn colour??

-I doubt it for spring perhaps?-unless the colour is green of course

I would recommend Asters eg. Aster Frikartii Monch. Mine has been in flower for over a month and is still going strong but there are many other late summer flowering varieties.Also good are some of the perennial geraniums. I have Geranium Dilys and it is flowering really well still.Hardy Chrysanthemums also good

Thanks all. I've got some Violas and hardy Chrysanths.

Memo to self - must wear my glasses - I read that as "Will get those plants for my space ship" 

Oh Christopher- you are funny-I am going to grass over all of my garden now for year round green colour- I will never have to garden again-well just to cut the grass -thanks for the advice

You are priceless-don't ever change-oh and don't stop posting

:- D :- D Dove, that is hilarious!!

I  bought some wallflower seeds yesterday, if I sow them today when will they flower?

i would definetly recomend chrysanths to any new gardener. they give a great splash of colour at this time of year. easy to propagate and nice and hardy

I just wanted to add my experience of growing wallflowers from seed. I sowed loads throughout this year including sowing them in late Spring, a lot of these have flowered already or have flowered in the Summer or will flower soon.  Some of them have gone to seed also. This has really surprised me as I honestly thought I was sowing for flowers next Spring So I don't think the hard and fast rules apply with these plants. It will always depend on your locality and the weather conditions.It is probably a bit late to sow seeds now,  to get flowers for next year. Having said that if you have a cold frame or greenhouse and you live in fairly southern location, I would give it go.

I had some lovely bare rooted plants bought this time last year form a local market- and they were very cheap. 10 plants for a £1- bargain

I always underplant violas with bulbs. if you dead head them they flower prolifically for months and when they get leggy I do a chelsea chop and they recover and flower some more. Although I do move them in spring I can get them to flower all year but usually don't have time in spring/summer to dead head which they need. Cheap and cheerful until my garden matures.

Figrat thank you for your advice I will save the seeds for next spring. I went to my local nursery yesterday and bought some lovely violas for my containers and they had some wallflowers in pots so I bought those as well, but they said that I would have to wait for flowers.

Hollie-hock did you sow the seeds indoors?

I've sowed so many of them,but I think I did start some of the cloth of gold this Feb in an incubator (wilkos £3) on my kitchen window sill and then moved them out into my cold frame. Once they had grown a few sets of true leaves I pricked out the growing tips to get them more bushy and then planted them out. They are now really big bushy lush plants, many of them are flowering now. That's why I say no hard and fast rules apply about these plants. I took some seeds off wallflowers that you would call wild/self sown, all I had to do was show them some soil and they were off- most off these if not all have flowered already. I love wallflowers if you haven't guessed so do the bees.

Sowed some viola seed a few months ago, potted them on into small pots and I've got a few pretty flowers already, will pot them onto larger pots, glad to hear that they flower for ages.