Many annual blooms perform best through the hot days of summer, but some varieties look for shorter days and milder temperatures to shine their brightest. In fall, we can hit the refresh button on our outdoor spaces with a new crew of cool-season standouts – grasses, mums, kale, heuchera, and more. Step by step, we make it easy to celebrate this incredible season of color and texture in our front step, patio, and landscape.
Start with Height + Center Focus
Whether backing up a garden bed or serving as the centerpiece for a container combination, taller elements like annual grasses and cool-tolerant dracaena spikes, add eye-catching height and drama to a display.
Add Supporting Color
Mounding bloomers and foliage bring the most color to beds and containers. Generally, they stand in front of or surround the tall centerpiece plants. In fall, this role is played most famously by the mums – those perfect globes of fuzzy, densely packed blossoms. But other beautiful blooms and colorful foliages fill this space too, including flowering kale and cabbage, marigold, zinnia, snapdragon, echinacea, and knobby ornamental pepper.
Balance It Out With Trailers
Low-growing, trailing plants drape and spread around the edges, creating an attractive visual balance to the tall elements in the grouping. Deep purple sweet potato vine is a perfect complement to autumn’s orange, red, and cold tones. Dorotheanthus ‘Mezoo’ is succulent and bright in white and sage green. And for more colorful blooms with your drape, look to Petchoa SuperCal® — a petunia x calibrachoa hybrid with both mounding and trailing properties for widespread coverage in beds and containers.
Fall Annual Care
In general, our fall annuals love the sun for the best performance. In a well-draining location, and water when the top of the soil or potting mix is a little dry. Keep an eye out for insect pests, but the nice thing about the cooler season is that these are much less of an issue than in the hot, summer months.
Let autumn’s rich color and texture shine with a new supply of seasonal foliage and blooms. Ready to browse our entire collection or have more questions? Get directions to our store or contact us here!
