The Fall Flower Garden

Oct 15, 2014

by Dale Odorizzi, Lanark County Master Gardeners

All summer long, your flower garden has bloomed beautifully. As the days get shorter and cooler, many of our gardens are looking a little shaggy. What is a poor gardener to do?

If you want colour in your garden in the fall, you have to think about it in the spring. So often, we go to the garden centre or plant sale and only buy plants that are in bloom. By the time September rolls around, they are worn out.

Many of the flowers that bloomed earlier in the year will bloom again if you deadhead them shortly after blooming. Perennial Bachelor Buttons, Delphiniums, Yarrow and Dianthus are all plants that had bloomed in the spring or summer. As soon as they start to fade, deadhead them. Not only will your garden look fresher, there is a good chance that many of them will bloom again.

Many grocery stores are selling pots of Mums. These plants will add an instant burst of colour to your garden or to your containers. Some of these may be winter hardy so consider planting them in your garden. There are certain varieties that are definitely winter hardy. Clara Curtis is one. It is a pink daisy-like flower that reliably blooms each fall. The Morden research lab in Winnipeg, famous for creating many of our hardy rose,s also has a line of Chrysanthemums.

Black Eyed Susan and Brown Eyed Susan are both Rudbeckia and both bloom proudly well into the fall. Blue Lobelia is native perennial that starts blooming at the end of August and keeps going into the fall. The Butterfly Bush is a terrific fall flowering shrub. As its name implies, it is a real Butterfly attractor and is a welcome treat for Butterflies late in the season. Many varieties of Phlox bloom well into the fall and can survive light frosts.

I had two new fall bloomers this year. The first was Bugbane or (Cimicifuga simplex). It grows taller than me, has beautiful dark foliage and produces wands of cream coloured flowers that smell divine. Bees and butterflies love it too. It took a couple of years to get comfortable in my garden but this year it was a real star of the Fall Garden. The second was Autumn Crocus (Colchicum autumnale). This plant looks like the spring blooming crocus but is much, much larger. It has a very different growing pattern. In the spring, it grew leaves that look like tulip leaves. They died back. In late September, little points started to come up out of the ground and beautiful mauve flowers appeared. The bulbs increase in number so the first year, you may get one flower per bulb. The next year you may have 4 or 5 bulbs where you only had one.

Ornamental Grasses come into their own in the fall. Take a walk through a garden centre to see if there are any that you can add to your garden. Roses often get their second wind after the heat of summer has passed. I like to deadhead and prune my roses at the beginning of August (no later) and they usually reward me with a beautiful display.

If you were disappointed in your garden this fall, take a look around and see if there are any plants you can add that will keep your fall flower garden looking great.

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