September is an accommodating month. Summer hasn’t quite packed its bags, but autumn has begun moving its things in. The dahlias are still going strong, the hydrangeas are beginning to turn, and suddenly the deeper colours tucked away in the linen cupboard start looking very appealing indeed.

It’s one of my favourite times of year for setting a table, and for this one, I began with Provincial Garden in Cranberry by Spode, a pattern I have loved for years.

Provincial Garden had a surprisingly brief shelf life, produced from 2002 to 2006. It came in both cranberry and green; neither is particularly easy to find these days, although the green seems to be even more elusive.

I was lucky enough to snag a teapot on eBay several years ago. From there, things progressed—as these things tend to do.

I now have quite a collection of dinner and salad plates, but the mugs and saucers have proved rather more difficult. I have only two sets (though I notice Replacements currently has four more in stock… hmmm).

Provincial Garden is an interesting product of its time. Its pastoral decoration looks firmly backwards, while the shapes have a distinctly early-millennium practicality about them.

There are no traditional teacups in the service; instead, there are substantial, straight-sided mugs with saucers. There are, however, separate coffee pots and teapots. Apparently streamlining had its limits.

I rather like the weight of the mugs, particularly for coffee, and their straight sides have the practical advantage of keeping the contents warm. For tea, I still prefer a finer cup. The thin rim simply feels nicer, although I have never understood why so many traditional teacups flare so enthusiastically towards the rim. They may be elegant, but the tea reaches room temperature far too quickly for my liking.

For something to enjoy with coffee, I brought out a loaf of Late Summer Zucchini Bread. It seems exactly right for this in-between moment—not yet the apples, pumpkins and cranberries of full-blown autumn, but a gentle nudge in that direction.

One of the joys of transferware is how readily different patterns mix. The shades needn’t match precisely; the common language of transfer printing does much of the work. Put Provincial Garden Cranberry and Tower Pink together and they behave like old friends. And having mixed the china, why stop there? What looks like a tablecloth is actually a woollen paisley throw I bought more than twenty years ago from Country Dining Room Antiques, sadly now defunct. I bought a similar one in green at the same time, and the pair have done yeoman work ever since.

Woollen throws make surprisingly useful table coverings. They have weight and texture, drape beautifully and, in the case of these two, their complicated patterns are remarkably good at pulling disparate pieces together.

This one has enough cranberry and russet to pick up the transferware, while the green and gold give us other colours to play with. It is a lot of pattern. Happily, I have never regarded that as an argument against anything.

Solid cranberry napkins provide a little breathing room, while the warm, burnished chargers introduce another autumnal note. The small gold leaf napkin rings add just a glint of metal.

Then came the flowers. September provides such a wonderful mixture of colours. The dahlias are still putting on a splendid show, while the hydrangeas have begun their transition into those wonderful muted greens. Alstroemeria and strawflowers add coral, apricot and gold. The result feels warm, layered and distinctly autumnal—which seems particularly welcome just now.

Provincial Garden appeared at an interesting point in design. Its decoration looked back to the past, while its more streamlined forms belonged to the informality of the new millennium. For a while, interiors seemed determined to become cleaner, cooler and less encumbered: pale woods, white and grey, open spaces and fewer objects.

Twenty-odd years later, the pendulum seems to be swinging again. Colour is returning. So are pattern, warm woods, texture and rooms filled with things collected over time. Thank goodness. Not a return to clutter for clutter’s sake, but to rooms—and tables—that look like someone actually lives there. Things with history beside things that are new. Patterns mixed rather than obediently matched. Objects that have been used for years brought out yet again and made to look entirely different because of what happens to be beside them this time.

Perhaps that is why Provincial Garden feels so entirely at home here. Against an old woollen paisley throw, mixed with another Spode pattern and surrounded by dahlias, wood and burnished metal, it has come full circle.

We weren’t the only ones who found the table inviting. Dundee joined us briefly, supervising the proceedings with considerable interest before concluding that the chair was the most useful element of the entire arrangement. Napping is his favourite activity after eating.

There will be plenty of time for pumpkins, russet leaves and the deeper colours of October. For now, I’m quite happy to linger in this lovely in-between season—with dahlias still blooming, hydrangeas turning green, an old woollen throw pressed into service once again, and Provincial Garden Cranberry providing just enough autumn to remind us that September has arrived.

Happy Labour Day weekend, all!