Fall planters

While the weather may be deceptive—hereabouts it’s summery well into October—there’s a crisp note of fall undoubtedly in the air. We are t-minus 5 days to September (a happy Labor Day weekend to all!) and we’re beginning to consider what the coming season will look like for us.

For me, a big part of the transition to fall is reevaluating my garden and my containers. Our yearly spring plantings, which thrive in their summer season, aren’t always the best suited for the transition to fall. Our tomato plants will probably keep kicking a while longer, but some summer plants just don’t thrive in the shadier, cooler days of autumn. Containers and window boxes are a really wonderful way to add color and texture to your home’s exterior decor. We usually make a game of coordinating our front planters to Orioles colors, in the spirit of baseball season! Those pops of natural flair, in any palette of your choosing, just add a special touch to your home, and can help make it feel more like you.

Now, when the weather changes, what’s a person to do? Today, to help you get your planters ready for the turning season, I thought I’d offer some tips and tricks, courtesy of Fine Gardening Issue 87 and an article by Dennis Schrader.

Sometimes, when you head to the garden store for fall planting, you get a pretty limited selection: the usual mums, pansies, and grasses that seem to be ubiquitous in fall. But what if we expanded our horizons? Consider using alternative accent materials—decorative cornstalks, gourds, and pumpkins can add color and shape while also remaining in keeping with the seasonal style.

Another suggestion: try using a mixture of pot sizes. When planning your planters, you can use smaller accent pots to draw out details from larger pots. Perhaps you use certain colors and textures in combination in your large planter—try pulling one or two of those plants into separate smaller pots, or smaller pots with decorative detail and color, and using those as accents to your larger container. This way, you maintain a sense of continuity in your design while still creating bits of variation for visual interest. 

And don’t let fall limit your color palette—plenty of colorful plants thrive in fall weather. Consider richly-colored mums, the purple blossoms of Mexican bush sage, the bright orange of firecracker plants, and every color of pansies. The vibrancy of the changing leaves can certainly be brought out in your planters!

Thinking in terms of texture is helpful too, especially if you’d like your planters to hold out until the winter ice and snow. Ornamental kale, dried grasses, and seed heads leftover from earlier plantings can make striking visual displays that hold up even when the December chill starts to set in. And remember, a planter doesn’t need to be elaborate to be beautiful! A limited plant selection with good color and texture variation can make for a strikingly lovely display, all while utilizing plants that are hearty enough for the cool weather.

Here are a few specific plant recommendations! Consider the following: African daisies, ornamental chard, flowering maples, coral bells, chrysanthemums, pansies, grasses of all kinds, flax lilies, creeping jenny, jasmine, and English ivies.

I hope these tips from Fine Gardening help give you a leg up for your fall planters this season. It’s time for me to make a trip to the garden store! But when you need me for your home redesign, I’ll be ready to go.