You live with your landscape 365 days a year. Fall can be full of color just like Spring!
You can extend the color show in your garden all the way through the fall season by planting a variety of fall blooming plants such as perennial garden mums. Some fall blooming perennial plants such as Autumn Joy Sedum, Baptisia and some of the perennial/ornamental grasses will provide winter interest as well if their dried flower/seed heads are left on plants throughout the winter. These also provide feed for birds. 'Dragon Blood' Sedum, Amsonia and other perennials will provide vivid foliage color in the garden as their foliage changes color with the arrival of cooler temperatures.
Here's a list of some of my personal favorite fall blooming perennials.
Toad Lily - One of the most interesting fall blooming plants is the toad lily (Trycyrtis). This plant produces clusters of unique, orchid-like flowers covered with purple speckles. It blooms from late September until frost and thrives in partial shade and moist soil.
Perennial Garden Mums - For daisy lovers, there's the ever-popular fall garden mums (Chrysanthemum morifolium and Dendranthema). It's hard to find any other family of flowering perennial plants that put on such a spectacular color show in the garden. There are literally hundreds of varieties of mums with flower colors that range from white to yellow, pink, purple, bronze, red and all the hues inbetween. There are several flower-types as well: some have single daisy like blooms with a central eye while others have decorative, double flowers. Others produce pom pom or quilled flowers. Some garden mums are know to bloom early in the Fall while others bloom mid-or late season. By planting several varieties it's easy to extend the bloom season all the way through early winter. Garden mums require a minimum amount of care and do well even under adverse conditions.
Pincushion Flower - The Pincushion flower (Scabiosa) might just be the longest blooming perennial in existence; sometimes blooming year around in southern gardens. But a long bloom season isn't the only attribute; the pretty blue or pink flowers of up to 3" across resemble a seamstresses pincushion.
Nippon Daisy - Chrysanthemum nipponicum, which is covered with yellow- centered flowers with white petals ia a fall blooming Shasta-type daisy.
Anemone (Wind Flowers) - The Japanese anemone produce pink or white daisly-like flowers that rise above attractive mounds of foliage of tall, wiry stems.
Asters - There are many varieties of fall blooming asters that are useful to provide outstanding color in the garden. 'Woods Pink' and 'Woods Purple' produce a profusion of iridescent purple or pink flowers in Fall while the Japanese Aster (Kalimeris) produce dainty, double white or blue daisy-like flowers.
Mum Pacificum - Also known as Ajania, Leucanthemum pacificum or Chrystanthemum pacificum is a low-growing, spreading perennial grown for its dusky grey-green foliage trimmed with silver and late yellow flower clusters.
Joe Pye Weed - This outstanding, large-growing perennial (4-6 feet high) produces an abundance of enormous, dusky purple flowers that butterflies just can't resist! The flowers start out dusky purple and go through many color changes, staying attractive all winter long. Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium) likes moist soil but will do fine in drier gardens.
Autumn Joy Sedum - This particular variety of sedum produces an abundance of cauliflower-like pink flower heads that fade to red atop succulent blue-green foliage. The stems of Autumn Joy turn tawny and the seedheads a blackish-brown after frost has occurred. Don't cut them back and they'll provide wnter interest in the garden.
Muhly Grass - An exceptionally drought tolerant ornamental grass that produces clouds of pinkish-purple "flowers" in late summer to early fall that rise above clumps of dark green very fine foliage.
