Beyond Mums: How to Extend the Garden with Fall Annuals

My mom conditioned me from an early age that planting flowers was reserved for the spring–  anyone crazy enough to plant flowers in the fall was just wasting money since flowers would be killed by frost. Imagine her surprise when I showed her my planters full of pansies in full bloom in late November, well into frosty temperatures in our Zone 5b climate.

Pansies and violas– not just spring flowers

The first fall flowers I grew are still my personal favorites– pansies and violas. Pansies and violas are both from the genus Viola.

They have a similar face-like appearance, but pansies have been selected to produce bigger flowers than violas. Violas produce dozens of smaller flowers on one plant.

Both are extremely cold-hardy, surviving light frosts with ease. Extend your season even further with winter pansies. Cultivars like ‘Subzero®’ pansies that are guaranteed to flower well into the fall and then return in the spring.

Chrysanthemums– are they annuals or perennials?

Chrysanthemums are another popular fall flower– a very cold-tolerant flower, but don’t count on it to survive the winter. People often ask me which mums will overwinter well. Unfortunately, there is no way to know by looking at them. Even the ones labeled “perennial chrysanthemum” may behave like an annual and not survive to see next spring.

The best advice I can offer on overwintering mums is to choose a sheltered, well-drained location, plant them early so their roots will establish well before winter settles in, and add a little extra mulch around them for the winter.

I do not remove any of the dead foliage after my mums are done blooming for the year. The dead stems help hold the mulch in place, and offer a little protection of their own. I remove the dead stems in the spring only after I see new shoots emerging. So far, I’ve lost only a few mums over the eleven years we’ve lived in our house.

It’s tempting to think that bigger (and more expensive) is better when planting mums. This is not always true. Most of my mums, which are huge now, started out in little three inch pots and only cost about a dollar. I’ve received really large mums as gifts in eight inch or greater pots that barely made it through one season let alone survived the winter.

It takes a lot of energy for a large mum planted in the fall to grow enough roots to survive the winter. In contrast, a smaller plant has a smaller root system to contend with. The lower temperatures and sunlight of fall also means there is less energy for the plant to work with– so again the smaller plant wins out.

Ornamental Kale and Cabbage– Pretty AND Tasty

Another fall “flower” growing in popularity is ornamental kale. What is so attractive about this plant is not the flower but the colorful leaves in creamy whites and various shades of pinks, reds and purples. Ornamental kale grows in a rosette, with new leaves emerging from the center of the rosette. The outer leaves tend to be a deep bluish green, sometimes with contrasting veins. The newer leaves in the center are where the beautiful colors show themselves. The colors become more vibrant as the weather cools.

I planted containers of a purple ornamental kale alongside yellow mums and yellow and purple pansies several years ago. The containers were beautiful as a whole, but the kale was the standout plant in the bunch. It was an unseasonably warm winter that year, and the kale kept growing all through the winter and I hated to remove it in the spring.

I also tried ornamental kale in my flower beds that fall, and I found that my local rabbit population really enjoyed eating every one of the plants! If my husband or I had wanted to eat the kale we could have as well, as ornamental kale is just as edible as the varieties intended for the vegetable garden.

There are some taller varieties of ornamental kale available that grow on tall stems and resemble large roses. Look for the ‘Crane’ and ‘Lucir’ series in beautiful shades of white, pink and purple and bicolor combinations.

Others

Aster

Calendula

Summer into fall– Celosia, Sweet Alyssum, ornamental grasses, ornamental peppers, black eyed susans, snapdragons, dusty miller, amaranthus (love lies bleeding), gomphrena, strawflower,

Fall Flowers = Months of Bloom

I tend to stick to fall flowers that have some chance of re-seeding or surviving well into the winter to get the most bang for my buck. In the case of pansies and violas I can get a good three months of flowers in the fall, plus a two or three months of bloom in the spring– that’s five to six months of flowering, easily equaling or exceeding all my ‘summer’ annuals. The ornamental kale I planted in September two years ago still looked good seven months later. To me that is proof that fall flowers are not a waste of money– chosen wisely they are a great way to stretch your gardening dollars.

As much as I’ve proven the value of fall flowers to myself, it has honestly been one more thing I haven’t had time or energy for as a mom of young children. This year is different—I’m excited to be planting fall flowers for the first time in five years! I’m keeping it simple, filling the two planters near my garage each with one ‘Redbor’ ornamental kale which has a deep purple leaf with a hot pink central vein surrounded by yellow SubZero® pansies that are guaranteed to survive the winter and bloom next spring. The best part of it all is my 3-year-old son is about as excited to plant the flowers as I am!

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