Fall Interest -A Garden Must

Fall can be the best season for color in your garden-after so many months of green it is refreshing on the senses to be surrounded by all the warm hues of Autumn. While it is sad to say good-bye to the warm weather of summer, the coming fall/winter brings some of the prettiest vistas of the year. So be sure not to overlook this opportunity to extend your garden season!

Many people neglect to add what is often referred to as "fall interest" plants to their gardens. Fall interest plants are grasses, perennials, shrubs and trees that bloom and or turn a different color or texture when the weather starts to turn cold. Having several of these in your landscape can keep your garden looking beautiful and interesting until the leaves have fallen off the trees.

In the fall the grasses are finally mature and are showing off their lovely seed heads. These can be soft and fluffy or long and flowing. The grass itself is usually long and graceful at this point adding a lovely soft and elegant touch to the garden that can be relaxing to just listen to as the wind blows over it. Fountain grass is a lovely mounding grass that is very popular and comes in a variety of sizes, dwarf to tall, and different colors too. It companion plants quite nicely with Echinacea Cone flower and Black-eyed Susans whose seed heads are attractive to look at and attractive for birds to eat. Golf Muhly grass sports a lovely pink haze of seed heads that floats like a mist in your garden.

Some great fall interest perennials are a variety of asters, golden rod, perennial sunflowers, many kinds of sedum and of course chrysanthemums. You have to be careful with mums, though as some varieties are not perennial and I have yet to figure out what the secret formula for figuring that out is.

Some fall annuals to try are pansies, violets, mums, and ornamental kale(cabbage) of all things! Taking the time to put a few of these in pots or in the bed just really add some brightness to your garden as the season winds down. Ornamental Kale and pansies will continue giving you vibrant color well into winter. I highly recommend experimenting with these annuals if you haven't already.

And last but not least don't forget to consider fall interest shrubs and trees. These are probably the most important element in your garden so choose your shrubs and trees wisely. You don't want to pick an invasive and uninteresting silver maple because in years to come nothing will be able to live underneath it. So do a little research and look for trees and shrubs that are not only recommended but add spring, summer and fall interest. Beauty Berry is a lovely fountain shaped bush that has lovely purple berries in late summer and then the leaves turn yellow in the fall. Euonymous or Burning Bush is a good landscape choice that has gorgeous fire red leaves in the fall. Caution using round up near this plant, though...very sensitive. There are also a number of spirea bushes which come in so many exciting leaf colors it's hard to choose-they are also highly drought tolerant and clay tolerant. Fothergilla Gardenii can handle partial shade and is lovely in yellow orange and red in the fall. Also try some Summersweet Clethra which incidentally is also very popular with the hummingbirds in the summer....

Fall interest plants are like the grand finale in your northern climate garden so don't overlook this important part of planning your garden at a time when you can finally just sit down, look around and relax! If you add a bird feeder and perhaps a water fountain you can sit back, turn off the television and just be entertained by the beauty and activity of your own back yard.