Petals & Roots: Bring Your Fall Garden into Your Home with This Quick Design Using Berries and Branches

This is the simplest way to capture a fall mood in your home

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Close up of hand holding a cotoneaster branch with red berries and red cardigan in background
(Image credit: Future/Esme Mai Photography)
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Bringing a seasonal snapshot of your garden into your home at any given time of year is, for me, the most quintessential, not to mention easiest, way of updating your interior décor.

Structural branches, warm foliage and berries in abundance is the recipe for this fall vase arrangement. It really is so quick and easy to create, and will give any part of your home some instant drama and a seasonal focal point.

What you need to recreate a fall vase arrangement with berries

Red hawthorn berries and autumnal foliage in pink vase with woman in red cardigan

(Image credit: Future/Esme Mai Photography)
  • A tall vase with a rustic or fall feel to it. Scroll down to find my shopping edit of ideal vases for this design.
  • Pruning shears or floristry scissors; I use the Niwaki floral scissors, available from Anthropologie as they are so sharp and reliable.
  • A selection of garden branches with berries, fall foliage and structural interest.

How to make your own fall vase arrangement with berries

hand holding pink scissors cutting a viburnum branch against pink tablecloth

(Image credit: Future/Esme Mai Photography)

I only used seven stems in this particular design; though some of them were admittedly pretty large.

The idea is all about bringing some of those natural, seasonal accents in the yard into your home. Look for any branches with berries, foliage and plants with fall color or branches that have started to lose their leaves, and any little accents from seed heads or grasses.

I used a large cotoneaster branch; two hawthorn branches; two cuttings from a snowball viburnum, and several stems of meadowsweet that had gone to seed and turned a lovely, rich shade of brown.

Red hawthorn berries and cotoneaster in pink vase with woman in red cardigan

(Image credit: Future/Esme Mai Photography)

Start by adding your first branch. I opted for the largest cotoneaster branch, and built my design around that.

I added the hawthorn next, being careful as those branches have spikes on them. They were very tall, so I trimmed them down quite a bit to keep the design balanced.

Measure the branches against the side of your vase each time before you cut them, to make sure you are trimming at the correct height. If in doubt, cut a bit less and keep trimming until you reach the desired length.

After the berries I added the extra fall foliage from the viburnum branches. The last thing to go in were the smaller stems of meadowsweet to add a subtle touch of dark brown, and to really reflect what's going in my garden at this time of year.

How you can modify this design

Red hawthorn berries and cotoneaster in pink vase with woman in red cardigan

(Image credit: Future/Esme Mai Photography)

You don't need a lot for this design; it's all about choosing a few statement branches and stems.

I wanted these to soften the design a little by adding the viburnum foliage, but you could use bare branches and berries alone for a more modern, architectural look.

You can build on it depending on what you notice in your own garden at this time of year. Look for the stems that stand out for you and think about how they would work with your chosen vessel.

And if you need any more help and inspiration choosing the right one, I've curated a selection for you below.

Shop our garden editor's vase edit

Petals & Roots is a weekly video series fronted by me, Rachel Bull, Head of Gardens at Homes & Gardens. Every weekend on social, I share my seasonal gardening and flower arranging expertise and advice.

Rachel Bull
Rachel Bull
Head of Gardens

Rachel is a gardening editor, floral designer, flower grower and gardener. Her journalism career began on Country Living magazine, sparking a love of container gardening and wild planting. After several years as editor of floral art magazine The Flower Arranger, Rachel became a floral designer and stylist, before joining Homes & Gardens in 2023. She writes and presents the brand's weekly gardening and floristry social series Petals & Roots. An expert in cut flowers, she is particularly interested in sustainable gardening methods and growing flowers and herbs for wellbeing. Last summer, she was invited to Singapore to learn about the nation state's ambitious plan to create a city in nature, discovering a world of tropical planting and visionary urban horticulture.