New plants to brighten up semi-shady clay garden for late summer/autumn?

[Alva]

Really want to inject a bit of colour! Ideally tough perennials, tho all plants considered ... any colour would be good, since there is SO much lush green to set them off.

I have a few pots I could plant up, too, if people have good non-clay suggestions. Garden is in London.

My garden is north facing and shady too. You could try sedums, hardy geraniums; astilbes/tiarellas/heucherellas are lovely too but are all more of early summer flowerers.

Thanks Bluestocking - will order myself some sedums and a selection of geraniums! - have never grown sedums, so it will be good to see how they like the ground.

some roses are happy in semi-shade - check david austin for varieties that are happier in shade (my fave Souvenier du docteur jamain [spelling!] for example.

tricertis, astrantia, persicaria (gone all latin here - check them out on the RHS website)

This garden is good for roses - they love the clay - but all but the last blooms have gone at this stage...maybe I need to see if any shade-lovers bloom in the autumn. And wow - those Latin names really are new to me, eyesfront! Thank you.

Hostas come in lots of bright shades of green and yellow.
Something else I have is purple loosestrife ( don't know latin but its nothing like yellow loosestrife).
This is a tough perinnal that grows to 6 foot by mid summer and has lots odf spikey pinkt/purple flowers now.

Wow, I'm loving that purple loosestrife! One of my neighbours has it in his front garden and I've never asked him what it is - thanks to MN and Google Images, now I know. Did you know, Chestnutty, that it's a bit of an ecological threat to wetlands in the US? But it is gorgeous.

Ooh, a bit of height - sounds good!

i have some lavendar that grows quite well and alpine plants seem to take their time to spread out but still seem to be surviving okay and give lovely white and red flowers which brighten it up a bit.

oh sorry late summer whoops.

I don't know about shade but I've got perennial helianthus growing in clay, zill be flowering in sept. Also echinea purpurea, flowering now. And gladioli seem quite happy too.

Another thought - our crocosmia is still flowering away - very bright, and there are lots of varieties.

Lovely, thank you! - lots to go on here, and no excuse for a dull autumn...