Fall Gardening celebrates the season with fresh ideas for fall planting in a variety of locations. Ideas for plants that explode with the colors of autumn abound, as well as inspiration for rock gardens, ornamental grasses, and conifers. Learn about planning for the future by planting trees in your garden beds, and how to collect and save seeds as summer moves into fall. Other articles include how to get the best photographs of your garden, how to protect your most tender plants from harsh seasons, and how to grow and store fresh herbs for later use. Both the amateur and seasoned gardener will find Fall Gardening a useful and inspirational source for planting ideas.
FALL Gardening
Season of Change
Plants & Planting
Purple, Gold & Peach • Trees aren’t the only actors in the show titled “Fall Colors”; late-blooming annuals, perennials and shrubs bring drama to outdoor spaces, too. Gardens blossom in every shade this time of year, but purple, gold, and peach are everywhere.
Reblooming Bearded Iris • Three and a half thousand years ago, the Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose III spotted iris blossoms while marching his troops across the land that we now call Syria. So impressed was the pharaoh that he had some of the plants dug up and transplanted to his extravagant gardens in Egypt. Rather than swiping them from conquered foes, modern gardeners scan the Internet and plant sales for fabulous irises with no less passion than Thutmose.
Autumn in the Rose Garden • As November rolls around, you may be thinking that the roses are winding down. Maybe you are cleaning up beneath the shrub roses when a ghost of fragrance sets the senses tingling. Peeking over the fence, you discover a top performer in the neighbor’s yard—that classic red rose, ‘Mister Lincoln’—as tall as you are and still covered with sculptural blossoms. Don’t give up on the rose garden just because fall has arrived—many repeat-blooming roses have yet to finish.
More Roses to Enjoy This Fall
Queen of Vines • Some call clematis the queen of vines. It is a showy bloomer, attractive to pollinators, and deer-resistant. This flowering vine scrambles down rocky hillsides or climbs over arbors and porches. Twining through roses, clematis is the definition of romantic planting; twisting around an obelisk, it makes a stunning vertical element.
Dark Magic • Deliciously dark and dramatic foliage plants are like shadows in a painting, layering in hue and depth. They moderate and complement hot, saturated yellows and oranges. Set alongside green-foliaged plants, they make greens seem greener. A low border of dwarf loropetalum fronting a holly hedge is an elegant accent. A partnership of purple basil and golden oregano underscores the basil’s lush good looks and softens the oregano’s glow. As gardeners, we cherish the moody allure of plants with dark foliage. Here are a few favorites.
Sensational Blue Salvias • Here’s a riddle for you: What do you call a well-seasoned individual? The answer: A sage! A different type of sage catches our attention here, though—the broadly diversified group of plants known as salvias.
Classic Dogwood • Poet Anne Morrow Lindbergh called the dogwood a miracle. It would be tough to argue. Shrubby dogwoods offer up fall foliage in shades of red and purple, standouts in the garden. When the fall show ends and snow covers the ground, sprays of stems appear in orange, gold, or cardinal red—bewitching in naturalized gardens.
Why Not Grow Nuts? • Protein-rich nuts! Luminescent fall color! Earth-friendly carbon sequestering! There are so many reasons to plant nut trees! And a tree exists for almost any garden—cold-hardy Korean pines and tropical cashews, shrubby chinquapins and statuesque pecans. Chosen carefully, trees that produce edible nuts or seeds add value to food gardens for generations. Moreover,...
