Use firepits and fairy lights to make your Bonfire Night garden party go with a bang

It may be the middle of autumn, but you can still throw a sparkling party in the garden

I know I’ve reached a certain maturity because I had no invitations for Halloween, apart from taking my son to a stage show of Judith Kerr’s Mog, but two for Bonfire Night. I love Bonfire Night. I grew up in a village where people would start constructing a bonfire on the school playing fields in the last weeks of October. The baked potatoes would glisten in tinfoil in the big round barbecues dusted off from summer; the inevitable drizzle would mix with firework smoke, making everything smell pleasingly petrochemical.

It’s fitting that floral fireworks can be found at this time of year too. In my garden, a few bright orange nasturtiums usually hang on, flashing like embers among the murk of the soil. Salvias, dahlias and asters, too, their flashy colours bright stalwarts against dim mornings and a month that literally begins with “No”.