Fallscaping: Saving the Best for Last

Darin Engh from Engh Gardens highlights some of the plants that make fall come alive.


Fall has so much to offer: not just an abundance of beautiful blooms, but a rainbow of foliage colors, flashy fruits and berries, and showy seed heads, too. Bring late-season appeal to your garden with vines, shrubs, trees, and flowers that retain their good looks through the sweet, golden days of autumn. Beautiful blooms, rich foliage and dramatic seed heads all have their roles to play in long-lasting fallscapes.

If you shop only in spring, there’s a good chance that your garden has mostly early-flowering perennials and shrubs, as they are the stars in sales displays at that time of the year. It also means that your garden probably looks pretty boring my mid-summer! This makes late-summer and fall shopping a must if you’re trying to track down many autumn flowering plants.

BEAUTIFUL BLOOMERS

When you think of flowers for fall, what comes to mind? Chrysanthemums, probably – maybe asters, and goldenrods as well – and sure, these classic late-bloomers are key ingredients in many fall borders. But they’re only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the dozens of fantastic flowering plants that can fill your beds and borders with color all through autumn; not just perennials, but a wealth of annuals, tender perennials, bulbs, shrubs, trees, and vines as well.

Perennial Favorites

• Aster

• Rudbeckia

• Helenium

• Russian Sage

• Plumbago

• Caryopteris
Amazing Autumn Annuals and Tender Perennials

• Profusion Zinnias

• Diascia
Eye-Catching Climbers

• Virginia Creeper

• Clematis

FABULOUS FOLIAGE FOR FALL

Colorful foliage is one of the hallmarks of fall gardens. Cooler fall temperatures tend to enhance the hues of many colored-foliage plants, either intensifying the existing colors or encouraging the production of richly colored new leaves that rival their dramatic spring appearance.

• ‘Angelina’ Sedum

• ‘Autumn Joy’ Sedum

• ‘Amber Waves’ Heuchera

• Hydrangea

• Burning Bush

• Flowering Dogwood

• Maples

THE JEWELS OF AUTUMN – SHOWY SEED HEADS AND BOUNTIFUL BERRIES

Fall gardens and landscapes offer yet another benefit you seldom find early in the growing season; a wealth of fascinating seed heads and fabulous fruits. Sometimes, these features carry over from late summer into fall; in other cases, they may appear in fall and last into winter. Either way, they give you even more ways to add excitement to autumn beds and borders. An abundance of brightly colored fruits and berries has to be one of the greatest joys of the fall garden – and it’s one that most overlook when planning for fall interest. Glorious autumn gardens aren’t just a treat for us to look at – they’re also an all-you-can-eat buffet for hungry birds and other wildlife. Aster, coneflowers ( Echinacea and Rudbeckias), and many other classic daisy-form flowers provide lots of nectar for migrating butterflies and pollen for beneficial insects, then turn into seed-rich heads that feed birds well into the winter months. Berry-bearing shrubs and trees can also be bird magnets.

• Rudbeckia

• Viburnum

• Cotoneaster

• Flowering Crabapples

• Juniper

• Beauty Berry

• Serviceberry


For more information, you can contact Darin at Engh Gardens in Sandy or online at /www.enghgardens.com.

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