Bid Summer Adieu with this Early Fall Garden Table

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It’s time to bid summer adieu with this early fall garden table. Clearly, this dark and moody fall table proves I’m not quite ready for pumpkins and spice. That isn’t to say I don’t love fall. Like every other intelligent human, I agree that fall is truly the best season – prove me wrong. But sometimes I tire of the predictable oranges and neutrals.

Here in St. Louis, our leaves won’t begin to turn until October and for most of us, our backyards are still thriving with all the colors of the rainbow. The only real clue that fall is upon us is that daylight is starting to wane and a few spiders have taken up residence in strategic corners.

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Embrace the Night

There is a lushness to early fall evenings. That’s why I chose to focus on dark place settings and deep rich florals. These Hepezia Plates from Anthropologie were absolutely perfect, but any combo of black and gold would work. If you can only find solid black plates, simply add some color with flowers and berries and highlight the color with a tucked napkin like these Marin Merlot Linen Napkins from Crate and Barrel.

Brass dinner plates are fairly easy to come by on Ebay, but if you aren’t into vintage dinnerware these Gold Stainless-steel Plates on Amazon are a good substitute. They are really elegant paired with Graphite Aluminum Chargers and Black and Gold Flatware.

Let’s talk glassware. These Waterfall Coupes from Anthro are super decadent and perfect for this table. I paired them with Porsha Smoke Wine Glasses from CB2, but the coupes are such stunners you don’t necessarily need another color.

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Over the Top Garland

Let me be honest, the garland was my favorite part of creating this table. If you have never created a garland runner, it’s actually fairly simple. I didn’t even use an actual garland. This is just stems of Eucalyptus overlapped to create the effect.

If you are only concerned about one evening, you can just place your blooms in the garland on their own. However, if you are worrying about your greens and flowers drying out, or they need to last a little longer, they make individual water tubes in which you can put each stem.

I used ridiculously large peonies, garden roses, proteus, kangaroo paws (yes that’s a real thing) along with hypericum berries, pomegranates and persimmons in shades of reds, pinks and oranges. Then I placed black and gold candlesticks throughout the garland with colored taper candles. Everything about this garland is over the top and it is magnificent if I do say so myself.

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WHAT’S FOR DINNER

Ok, so there are a ton of late garden recipes out there. If you need to use up all that basil you grew over the summer, you can’t go wrong with a Basil Pesto Pasta. The addition of grilled chicken or shrimp makes this a hearty main dish. Do you still have tomatoes? Why not serve it with No Need Italian Herb and Cheese Bread and Marinated Tomatoes? You can never go wrong with pairing pasta with a classic Caesar Salad and this Honey Thyme Cheesecake is the perfect dessert for a fall garden dessert.

Really anything veg heavy and fresh are going to make the most sense for this party. In a few short weeks, the local produce and herbs will be gone. So enjoy the bounty while it lasts!

Saluti,

Jen