Adding Color and Substance to the Fall Garden

It's August and the garden is going out of color. But it doesn't have to. There are plenty of ways of keeping your garden bright long into fall.


Item # 46038 		Echinacea x Big Sky™ 'Sunrise' PPAF
Sunrise Coneflower

Each $9.99
3 to 6 plants $9.79
7 or more $9.59
Agastache Sampler Collection
Item # 99511 		Agastache Sampler
Hummingbird Mint Collection

each $38.25

Item # 99535 		Liatris and Solidago Sampler

Each $34.44
  • Topic: Fall Gardening
  • Author: Cindy Bellinger
  • Keywords: fall color, fall planting, Fall Gardening, gardens
  • Date: August 2003

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So. You’re standing in your garden and things aren’t quite as lovely as they were even last week. What’s wrong? It’s simple. It’s August and the garden is going out of color. But it doesn’t have to. There are plenty of ways of keeping your garden bright long into fall.

David Salman, president and chief horticulturist for High Country Gardens, says, “What happens is right after winter, we tend to plant for spring. We under plant or forget what happens in the dog days of summer and fall. Thinking ahead seasonally will greatly extend any garden.”

Salman says many of our native plants are late season bloomers and we tend to overlook them when spring planting. But he says you can add late season color by planting them in late summer and fall.

Some great plants to stick into your garden now include:

  • Agastache rupestris ‘Licorice Mint’
  • Agastache rupestris ‘Sunset Hyssop’
  • Agastache aurantiaca ‘Just Peachy’ Hummingbird Mint
  • Solidago rugosa ‘Fireworks Goldenrod’
  • Solidago sp. ‘Wichita Mountains’ Golden Fleece
  • Helianthus maximiliana ‘Santa Fe’

Another plant that Salman created at Santa Fe Greenhouses, the parent company of High Country Gardens, is Zauchneria garrettii Orange Carpet (Hummingbird Trumpet). It likes morning sun and afternoon shade. It only grows about four to six inches high and makes a good solid groundcover.

And if you still have plenty of heat where you live, the plant that like being transplanted when you’re wilting are the salvias:

  • Salvia x ‘Raspberry Delight’
  • Salvia greggii ‘Furman’s Red’
  • Salvia greggii ‘Wild Thing’

“All of these fall flowers—the agastaches and salvias—will attract the hummingbirds,” says Salman, “especially in the southern parts of the country as they move south on their migrations.”

Though gardens tend to be out of color now, they do offer another opportunity-that of giving us a chance to see what changes need to be made. Stand back and take a look and assess the layers.

  • Are there bare spots that need a little color, a little more height, perhaps something a little more feathery?
  • Is something missing up front? Perhaps it’s something tiny leafed like Veronica x Blue Reflection (Creeping Speedwell) that could be added next spring to drape over a stone wall.
  • Could a tall plant such as Sorgastrum nutans ‘Cheyenne’ (Cheyenne Indiangrass) be added to the back of the garden to make other plants stand out?
  • Is there a spot where some combinations would be good? Try Solidago sphacelata ‘Golden Fleece’ and Salvia pitcheri ‘Grandiflora’ (Pitcher’s Blue Sage).

Salman says late summer is a good time to add substance to a garden, and this means working with ornamental grasses and woody plants, those plants that have fruit and fall foliage. “Many of the woody plants have berries and these will contribute to attracting birds to your garden,” he says.

Two that he recommends are Fendler’s Barberry and the Silver Buffalo Berry.

Woodies for fall color include the sumacs—the Three Leaf and Gro-Low.

For fruit and foliage the Crandall’s Currant is good. Want a carpet of red fall leaves? Plant Hardy Plumbago with its deep blue September flowers.

Sedums also provide late summer and fall flowers. Ruby Glow, October Daphne and Autumn Joy are all wonderful. A good filler flower for this time of year is Echinacea, this month’s plant profile.

To better help you plan your garden our print catalog is divided into bloom time-early or late spring, summer, or early or mid-fall. Also, on the back of our current catalog are the fall blooming bulbs, which is another way of adding late color. Online, use our plant finder and search by bloom time.

If you want a garden that has something blooming from the moment it wakes in the spring and continues into fall, now is the time to plan. Now is also a good time to plant. So extend your garden’s color for another six weeks or more.