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Beyond Chrysanthemums: Plants for the Autumn Garden

© Carol Wallace

This afternoon I drove past a nursery on the main highway and noticed that they had put out their fall flower display. Even driving by at 35 m.p.h. I could see that they were doing business as usual - trying to convince the world that the only fall flower worth growing is the mum. Like Peggy Lee after she went to the circus I found myself humming "Is that all there is?"

And the answer is - of course not!

To state the obvious, most annuals, from nicotianas to castor beans are still going strong. That's why we buy them. Nor are we limited, as so many garden pictures would have us believe, to the autumnal oranges, golds and red that we traditionally associate with autumn. Since annuals come in just about every color ever invented, you can have a fall garden in whatever color scheme you want if you rely heavily on annuals and plants with colored foliage.

And there is a lot of colored foliage out there at this time of the year - some of which will change color, and much of which will remain as is. If you have planted things with blue, silver foliage, or gold, chances are those plants will remain silver and gold. Many purple perennials will hold that color until they either go dormant or wither from frost. So will many plants with variegated foliage. Use enough of those and even the fall garden can be as pastel and ethereal as you please.

Bulbs for fall
And what about the late summer and autumn flowering bulbs? Especially the crocus and colchicum.

I've always been tempted to freak out the neighbors with a huge planting of Crocus sativus (you know - the one that they use to get saffron from). Actually, any of the autumn crocuses will do. I'm always surprised at how few people even know about these! You could fool the neighborhood into believing that you'd had spring shipped to you from Australia.

And don't forget Colchicum. These guys are not just lovely - they are so impatient to bloom that you can leave a bag of them on the kitchen counter and open it to find your plants flowering away happily. I have a colchicum called "Waterlily" which I enjoy planting at the edge of my big pond - as if a real waterlily had jumped ashore and taken root. (I'm surprised at how people think that, too. We really do need to use fall bulbs more often!)