Not a fan of brown in the garden? Pining for color in early fall, before the trees put on their big show? Me, too! Here’s how desperate I am for color.
Buying plants with delayed blooms
Last spring I bought a ‘Blue Fortune’ Anise hyssop for my pollinator garden and it turned out to attract more bees than any plant I’ve ever grown! Yet, by September its blooms have faded and just one bee is still there, drinking the last of the nectar. (I paid $25 for it. Worth every penny.)
Then last week I was at a local nursery and what should I find on the perennial bench but dozens of ‘Blue Fortunes’ in full bloom with masses of bees on them! I couldn’t resist buying a few, while appreciating the grower who delayed their blooming so that customers would lust for them in September, just like I did. They were $15 each and I bought five.
After getting them home and gathering them on my patio, still in pots, the bees found them in under five minutes. I swear.
Spray-painting spent blooms
I’ll bravely move on to the next trick, knowing that some of you will hate it.
On the left are the typical oakleaf hydrangea blooms of late summer/fall. In years past I’ve removed them and spray-painted them for dried-flower arrangements indoors. This time I grabbed whatever Rust-Oleum spray can I had around the house and turned the brown flowers, still on the shrub a bold turquoise (“Seaside”).
I don’t like it, either. So I tried again, with “Grape.”
Now I like it! And it’s fooling visitors, who seen to trust that an experienced gardener like me would never fake it. Ha!
I also used “Rustic Orange” on this hydrangea, which I hoped would match the reddish color of the bench and wall hanging. Not close enough, but not horrible.
Buying a colorful hydrid shrub
Awaiting planting, under the watchful eye of my indoor cat – ‘Canyon Creek’ Abelia.
This last example I don’t really consider “tricking nature,” but purists who support species over hybrids and cultivars may disagree. Let’s consider the ‘Canyon Creek’ Abelia shrub.
One source tells us the Abelia x grandiflora ‘Canyon Creek’ is “an open-pollinated seedling of Abelia chinense that was selected through Dr. Michael Dirr’s breeding program at UGA” and another calls it as an “interspecific hybrid, originating from a cross involving parent species like Abelia chinensis and Abelia uniflora.”
To which I say “Whatever!” because sources go on to describe it as “a vigorous growing cultivar with some of the best yellow foliage of any shrub on the market today. The glossy, medium to fine-textured foliage starts out a contrasting coppery red and matures to bright sunny to golden yellow and finally to green in summer providing interest throughout the year…Tough and easy, evergreen to semi-evergreen medium to large shrub…The fragrance of the flowers in a bouquet can be enough to fill a room. Highly recommended.”
You know who else highly recommends it? GardenRant’s Marianne and her podcasting partner Leslie Harris on an episode of The Garden Mixer. They raved about the foliage color and long bloom season so much, I determined to get one (by special order from my favorite tree and shrub source.) It’s even the perfect size for where I need it – 4-6 feet tall and wide. What a change from the Arborvitae I used to grow in that spot and came to hate.
Useful. Wrote down names of Anise and Obelia. Thanks
Liking those violet blooms (natural and artificial)!
All things plastic are carcinogenic. Do the research. Microplastics are everywhere. In our bodies. In the waterways, in the soil. Adding spray paint on natural foliage is detrimental to your health, and to ALL ecosystems. Please rethink your desire for color. I am a huge fan of color too, but not at any cost. Respectfully
So YOUR house is all natural wood, with no gypsum board and no paint? And your car isn’t painted and has no plastic parts? What does Susan’s article have to do with plastics anyway?
My thoughts exactly! thank you for putting it so well.
Thank you.
My Caryopteris Longwood Blue is amazing now. … and has been for a couple of weeks… zone 5 Illinois.
I have divided it successfully as well.
Sunny well drained site – very drought tolerant. Blue Fortune is a great large filler plant. By year 2 will fill out considerably- may need to divide..
Interesting. The blooms on caryopteris have lost their color by now.
I’m elated to find this site! As a “self master gardener (I wish; however, try) found Soo much information and beautiful ideas! Tanya Semel
Hmm, my oakleaf hydrangeas aren’t brown at all. (I’m in the Hudson Valley, NY, area, for what it’s worth.) Which cultivar do you have? Alice, Snow Queen, Ruby Slippers and Amethyst all fade to pinks and magentas by this time, and don’t usually turn brown until after a frost or two. (Also, my various other hydrangeas – arborescens, serrata, and especially the panicles – are nearly all aged to pink, or green/pink like the limelights, if they’re not actively throwing off a few more white flowers, like my Tardiva panicle).
Additionally, there’s the blue mistflower that’s going strong, goldenrods (especially the caesia), my Wendy’s Wish salvia is spectacular still, blue lobelia, bottle gentians, Autumn Joy sedums, black cohosh, the the asters! Even the Jeana phlox is chugging along, and the marilandicas are re-blooming with their reds and yellows. My straight species anise hyssop is 90% done for, but otherwise, all these other flowers are blooming right now in my garden at the end of September (if they haven’t gotten squashed by a falling tree limb in this storm, ugh), and that’s just what I can think of off the top of my head at 10:30pm. No Rust-Oleum necessary.
Again, so interesting! I’m in Zone 7B and all my oakleaf hydrangea blooms are brown, including Snow Queen. Mine are in my back garden, where right now the only blooms are from the potted Lantanas. The Caryopterises are still beautiful but the flowers are no longer blue.
In my front garden where I’ve just added Blue Fortune with the delayed blooms, some mistflowers are still in bloom and the only other plants still blooming are the zinnias. (Review of the dwarf ones coming soon.) My Joe Pye Weed is long gone but now that I think of it, the wood asters are still sporting their small white blooms.
Ah! I’m so sorry! I just walked outside in my raincoat and looked at all of the hydrangeas that bloomed this year (I forgot back in March that some of them shouldn’t be pruned, lol). And the oakleafs are, in fact, all bronzey-brown. I’m conflating them with the panicles, which are all pink still, and are in front of my more prominent Alice oakleafs in one of the beds most visible to the house. WHOOPS. If memory serves, the Amethyst oakleaf does hold on to its deep reds longer (the one shrub that bloomed got crushed yesterday by a tree leader), but I digress. The panicles Chantilly Lace, Big Ben, Limelight and Tardiva, and the Grayswood serrata are all lovely pink (or even have the straggler fresh bloom on a couple of the panicles) right now in zone 7A.
And your front garden sounds lovely; I’m very glad you’ve got additional color. (I don’t think I have enough sun for the lantana + laryopteris, myself.) But! The wood asters here are absolutely everywhere, so it’s a good show. And I’ve tried to grow Sweet Joe Pye, but I can’t seem to find the right spot for it – I’m trying again where some anise hyssops were, so maybe next year? And definitely adding zinnias next year, they’re so cute and happy, and they’re great for hummingbird clearwing moths apparently; I’m always trying to get more of them in my yard. I’ll look forward to the zinnia review. 🙂
I have had trouble getting hyssop to return (Z 6a in Connecticut). But I just planted a liatris scariosa (taller, later blooming and bunchier flowers than the standard gayfeather) and found four monarchs on it within hours. Otherwise, my bees are still feeding happily on my potted annual salvias. Of course, after the torrential rains of the past three days, who knows what will be left of them.
Damn I hope I didn’t waste money buying perennials that aren’t gonna come back next spring!
My crape myrtles are still colorful here in 8a NC, but soon they won’t be.
I like annuals for fall color. My self-seeding annuals like Chinese forget-me-not and alyssum are still going strong. If I’d gotten around to it, I’d have planted some Angelonia several months ago as well. Commercial displays still have lots of Catharanthus blooming here.
Many Salvias are known for fall flowers, though I don’t have any.
Winterberry and possumhaw hollies, and purple beautyberry, bear bright berries sooner than most foliage turns its fall color.
There’s also always strategic placement of pumpkins, either store-bought or growing on a vine.
I’m also in zone 7b (College Park, MD) and I have Verbena bonariense, Colchicum, Cyclamen hederifolium and aster October Skies in bloom. I also have Oxypetalum caeruleum that’s still in bloom. (I got this last year and it came through the winter just fine, although it did die back to the ground.) Also for color I have American Beautyberry berries turning purple. Besides those perennials I have a number of self seeded annuals that are in bloom but my favorite for color are the ornamental peppers. I let the fruit fall where it may and end up pulling up seedlings in the spring by the hand full and still have a boat load of different colored peppers!
That’s a LOT.
Do you ever visit the UMD gardens? I’m there 4xweek for classes and there’s lots to keep track of. One of the horticulturists posts to Facebook and gives tours.
I get the need for fall color Susan! And YES to that Abelia, which now has the self-seeded blue spires of Lobelia siphilitica blooming through it and making me want to plant about 3 more! –MW
In my (Zone 6A, Hudson Valley) garden, chrysanthemum (or whatever genus) Emperor of China and Sheffield Pink are just coming into bloom and will survive a number of light frosts. The latter is a special favorite, since it branches without pinching and needs no support. Late garden asters of course, their names long lost. My most cherished plant in this season though is Ceratostigma plumbaginoides (common name Blue Leadwort, which I’ve rarely seen). Right now it is still full of rich sapphire blue flowers, even nicer because its foliage is turning burgundy. It’s a great weed suppressing ground cover, though I’d hesitate to plant it right next to fragile perennials. I remain surprised it isn’t more widely used. And some of my lavender is having a second end-of-season bloom, I don’t know why. Oh! And repeat-flowering bearded iris. I don’t find most of them very reliable, but Immortality always has a strong second bloom, and many spikes are still coming. And it’s tough as nails. Smaller flowered roses are still pushing buds and bloom, Perle d’Or especially. Like most of us, I expect, my boldest fall color is coming not from flowers but from foliage on smaller trees and shrubs: stewartia, fothergilla, ninebarks, gold-thread cypress. And vines like Virginia Creeper.