It seems we have almost too many flower choices for spring and summer, while autumn captivates us with foliage color. But there are lovely blooms on shrubs and perennial plants at this time of year, too.
Use the plants featured here to extend interest and create garden pictures for your autumn garden.
There is something about the colors in this late part of the gardening year which makes it simple to combine them for pleasing effects. Even the pinks are warm and marry well with the oranges and golds! It is as though the mellowing of the season tones even the flower colors into a harmonious synthesis of beautiful climax and harvest.
If you want subtle shades -that is possible, while a big bright palette can be as easy as planting masses of mums in their Joseph's coat of available shades (most colors except blue and true red).
Perennials in the garden may play a second fiddle to the foliage of the turning trees, but they make a beautiful harmony. Remember to add them to the garden pictures, perhaps even giving a featured area to pull out all the stops.
Using Late Bloomers To Full Advantage
Give attention to the end of your growing season
New England Asters
Michaelmas Daisies
These asters are tall and full of purple, pink, and sometimes white flowers. Many named vairieties
PeeGee Hydrangea
Hydrangea tardiva
The tree hydrangea, especially the cultivar H. tardiva blooms in the latter part of summer. Other varieties are also available: 'Pink Diamond' 'Unique' 'Floribunda' 'Chantilly'
Black Eyed Susan
Rudbeckia
You can plant a named variety or you can plant wildflower seeds. This tough perennial will give fall its golden flowers and winter the black seedheads for interest
Calendula Officianalis
Pot Marigold
Surprised to see an annual included? These reseed themselves, and the flowers are some of the last ones in my garden!
Blue Mist Shrub
Caryopteris clandonensis
Covered with clusters of tiny flowers the effect is very much like a blue mist in a loosely rounded shrub.
Chrysanthemums
Cushion Mums
Seen everywhere because they are covered in bloom and tolerate frosts.
Sedum Spectabile
Sedum Spectabile
Ranging from pale flesh pink to a ruby red, these flowers not only provide late color, they give winter interest, too.
Blue Leadwort
Plumbago
One of those rare blue hues, this groundcover plant has a very long season of color. For that reason it has become one of my personal favorites which is also very easy to grow.
Boltonia
Boltonia Asteroides
Shortlived perennials that provide a cloud of softly tinted aster like flowers late in the season.
Anemone Japonica
Honorine Jobert
Japanese anemones are softly graceful and one of the prettiest flowers to bloom at this time.
Sweet Autumn Clematis
Fragrant Vine
Blooms in early September for me. Simply covered in butterfly attracting blossoms.
Russian Sage
Perovskia Atriplicifolia
Very tough, but quite good looking when grown well, this looks like an ungainly lavender. Often seen in roadside landscaping schemes, it is a nice autumn contrast and background.
Goldenrod
Solidago
Some consider it a weed, but these bright gold flowers can light up a late garden. Named cultivars, or native wildlings, they are ideal for a native garden.
Helenium
Helenium
Autumn colors make sneezeweed a pretty daisy for this time of year.
Colchicum
Crocus Like Bulbs
Not a crocus, but little chalice flowers in pretty lavender and pink colors.
Plant Notes
These flowering plants bloom starting in July or August,. Some of them keep on blooming late into the fall, and others are over much earlier. Depending on the conditions in your garden they may coincide in flowering times, but they also may not and it changes from year to year. This is both the challenge and the joy of creating an all season garden.
Hydrangeas
The Hydrangea tardiva flowers late in the season as the name implies, but other forms of the hydrangea shrub also provide lots of interest at this time of year. I have Endless Summer putting on a second flush of bloom, Annabelle keeps fading flowerheads and catches falling snow in winter. This family of shrubs are strong performers in a garden.
Sedum And Rudbeckias
These perennials are also well known for their lasting winter interest, but their flowers give wonderful color in the late part of the growing season. They come in a number of named varieties, and Rudbeckia has more species than just the gold and black 'R.fulgida'. Go a little wild and grab up some wildflower types of the Rudbeckia family, range into the different Sedum spectabile plants and create some eye catching designs featuring these companions.
Cushion Mums
Say no more. This is the ultimate fall color flower. One of their features besides the full flowering, many colors and forms, is their ability to last through a number of frosts. Depending on the cultivar they may or may not last through your winters. One tip is that if you leave the tops all winter they are more likely to reappear the next year. I have grown some types that came back for many years, but I have also lost some types to the elements of our harsher winters.
Calendula Officinalis
These annuals bring golden yellow and orange daisies late into the season, surviving even light frosts. They might be a surprise inclusion in the list, but I'm betting you will love them, too.
Other Plants For Later Garden Pictures
A garden picture is not made up of only main players, although it is possible to create a fine landscaping plan that way. Many public gardens are limited to two or three choices, but I think it gives a sterile, impersonal look. For me, a little more complexity adds depth and personality to the garden scheme. The beauty of a perennial feature is in the contrasts and textures of harmonious plantings which show interest at the same time. Some suggestions of those which you may want to add for fall interest.
- Allium 'Summer Beauty'
- Verbena bonariensis
- Panicum virgatum
- Miscanthus sinensis 'Gracillimus'
- Aconitum carmichaelii
