Wednesday 16 September 2015

Perennials for Autumn Colour



People are always asking me for planting that provides year-round colour and clients always want something interesting to look at in there garden for as much of the year as possible.  Here are some of my favourite perennials for keeping colour in the garden well into the autumn months.

Aster frikartii ‘Monch’

All Asters provide great autumn colour, but I love this one because it blooms from late summer through to November.  It’s a lovely tall, open form and the bees love it.




Sedum ‘Purple Emperor’

Sedums are wonderful for wildlife and give great structure to a border, making particularly good edging plants.  This one has dark pink flowers and I really like the dark purple foliage.  Give it the ‘Chelsea Chop’ in late May to keep it from flopping open.






 Helenium ‘Wyndley’

Another of my favourite perennials, it's flowers have dark centres and burnt gold petals.  It will flower from early summer all the way into October. 



Echinacea purpurea

Wonderful for bees and other insects, and great for structure standing upright on robust stems. Gorgeous dark pink with cone shaped centres.  Will flower from mid-summer well into the autumn.




Geranium ‘Rozanne’

Deservedly the nation’s favourite geranium. This fabulous plant will produce masses of bright blue flowers all summer and keep going all the way into October.  Great for the front of the border and cascading down walls.



Cimcifuga atropurpurea

A wonderful architectural plant with dark purple foliage and tall stems with white bottlebrush flowers that smell heavenly.  It is a very late flowering plant and really prefers a bit of shade, but I've got it in a sunny herbaceous border and it's doing very well. 


 

Verbena bonariensis

Beautiful purple flower heads stand above the rest of the border on stiff stems. Again, fabulous for attracting bees and other pollinating insects to the garden.  


Include some grasses with these perennials for a colourful, easy to maintain, naturalistic autumn border.

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