Autumn is arguably New England’s most spectacular season.  Maximize the color in your garden with these plants, which have particular fall interest:

 

Aster: we carry the fall blooming Stokes and Wood’s varieties of Aster, which are highly mildew resistant.  Available in pink, blue and purple, these textured, daisy-like flowers will grow to 12-15” tall and 18-24” wide.  Their foliage will also turn deep red as the fall progresses.

Burning Bush Euonymus: This Euonymus variety is super hardy with an explosion of intense scarlet foliage in the fall.  It’ll grow to 6-8’ tall and 8-10’ wide.

Dogwoods: Red Twig and Yellowtwig Dogwoods provide amazing, saturated color to the landscape any time of year.  They’re super-easy to care for and work well in groupings and as background plants. 

Blue Holly: lustrous, deep, blue-green foliage provides the backdrop for bright red berries that light up any fall and winter landscape.  Check out all our Ilex varieties, including Blue Prince, Blue Princess and Berryrific, a hybrid of the two.

Hydrangea: there are a variety of hydrangeas that bloom in the fall.  Our most popular variety is the tree form Pee Gee Hydrangea, which will reach a mature height of 10-15’.  Its huge, white, pom-pom flowers bloom in late July and persist well into the fall, turning pink and beige as they age.  It’s very hardy and easy to grow.  Leave the flowers to dry on the plant to create interest into the winter.  Endless Summer shrub form hydrangeas also bloom right into the fall on both old and new wood, making them much more hardy than traditional shrub varieties.

Ornamental Grasses: ornamental grasses come in more varieties than you can count.  We recommend Northern Sea Oats for its coppery late season foliage and its late summer and fall bird feeding.  Indian Grass is also a great choice because of its bluish-green foliage that turns bronze as winter approaches.

Sedum: this versatile plant can be found in both mat and upright perennial forms, and comes literally in a rainbow of colors.

Sweetspire: also known as Itea, our Little Henry variety will grow to about 3’ tall and 3-4’ wide.  The plant will explode in pure white flowers in late June, and the fantastic red foliage in the fall will rival, or even outshine, Burning Bush Euonymus.

Winterberry: Apollo Winterberry is a late flowering, male, deciduous holly that washes the landscape with brilliant red berries and yellow fall foliage.

For more autumn flowering, take a look at Yarrow, Clematis, Japanese Kerria and Black-Eyed Susan.

For fall foliage, also check out Japanese & Sugar Maple, Shadblow, Cotoneaster, Enkianthus, Flowering Crabapple and Viburnum.