Looking to elevate your garden? Discover the best shrubs and perennials to plant this fall for a vibrant and stunning spring display!
It is prime season to be planning and planting your garden, so let’s talk about some perennials and some great shrubs that would be wonderful additions to your landscape. Start preparing that this is going to be a great planning planting session season.
Fall Planting
Fall is a fantastic time to start talking about and planting your plants because during the fall the temperatures are cooler. More rain is typical, especially in the south. That is where there is a great time of root growth versus a lot of foliage growth, which is happening in the spring and the summer.
Flowering Shrubs
Here are some flowering options.
Azaleas
In the south, one of the most iconic flowering shrubs is without a doubt the azalea. There are lots of different varieties of both encore azaleas and the proven winners azalea. Both the encore azaleas and the azaleas from proven winners are re-blooming azaleas that prefer the sun.
These will bloom in spring, they will bloom a little bit in summer, and now they are starting to put on their second flush, third flush rather of blooms. They do great in the south in the fall.
- Autumn Moonlight: Autumn Moonlight is absolutely beautiful because it is a double pure white bloom. These azaleas will come in all different sizes. This one will be like five feet tall, three feet wide with beautiful double pure white blooms. Fantastic azaleas are evergreens, so these make great either foundation plantings like up against your house or if you want to create them out in beds. As a general rule, these are going to be hardy in zones 7 to 10. The encores do like the sun, so if there isn’t sun, then these are not going to be for you.
- Autumn Bonfire: This is such a fun one. Bonfire’s habit is going to be a nice petite one. A beautiful double flower on it, a beautiful red. This is gonna be a little bit more cold tolerant, six to ten, but this is only gonna be like a three foot tall, three and a half foot wide. They’re just now starting to put on their fall flush of colors.
- Perfecto Mundo Double Purple: From proven winners, see that this is a totally different color. Again, a beautiful double bloom on it nice purple color. This has a strong re-bloomer sun to part shades, so that means at least four to five hours of sunlight per day for this baby to do. This is from a six two and nine. It’s gonna be another little petite one, so it’s only gonna be two and a half to three feet tall by three feet wide.
Azaleas typically are kind of a low deer resistant, so if a deer are a really big problem, azaleas might not be the best choice because their leaves are rather soft. Again, they are evergreen. If you want to prune your azaleas, you want to do it after their spring blooms. So azaleas are always a fantastic choice.
Roses
Roses offer continuous blooms. They are going to be full sun. Roses predominantly are going to be sun requirements, so again at least that five to six hours of direct sunlight or more hardy in zones five to nine. This is the perfect zone. These make great ground covers if you want to put them out only maybe like two feet tall and wide. As far as roses go, they do have some thorns but they are not like big giant thorns very low on the stickiness conditions on that so they’re not the big giant thorns.
The newer blooms are more of a deep pink, and the older balloons are a little bit more of a pale pink, so you get a lot of great variation on these. These are more disease resistant, so they’re not going to be as prone to diseases as maybe some of the old varieties of roses. These are fantastic, and if you leave your roses the old blooms you get rose hips, and rose hips are basically these little balls that will turn these gorgeous color in the fall and the winter, so don’t prune them until late winter early spring, and you’ll get lots of good interest even in the winter from those beautiful rose hips.
Pearl Glam Beauty Berry
This is a unique plant. It is deciduous, so it’ll lose its leaves, but it has beautiful color for the rest of the the three other seasons out of the year. For us in the south, we’re talking that there’s really not a lot of foliage for maybe three months. The rest of the year it is absolutely gorgeous. It has this beautiful green foliage with these dark purple veins in it. In the early summer late spring, it’ll put on white flowers, and it’ll start from the bottom of the stem and work its way up.
Pollinators go crazy over this plant. Those little white flowers turn into these beautiful purple berries that is why it’s called a beauty berry because here in the fall they’re just now starting to take on that beautiful purple hue, and they will become absolutely iridescent in color, just this like neon purple color absolutely gorgeous. These berries are covering these stems, and they are nice and heavy nice and full of berries just gorgeous fall interest to them. Pearl Glam will get four to five tall and wide so gives some nice structure either in the middle or the back of your garden depending on how it is laid out.
Pearl glam is a beautiful one. It is a native plant. If you want something that gives three seasons of interest and gives structure even in the winter, pearl glam beauty berry is a fantastic one for you.
Sprinter Boxwood
This is just a fantastic plant. Obviously boxwoods or evergreens. This is sprinter boxwood and it is just a great staple that you can put in your garden. It provides that great evergreen color. Imagine if you had boxwoods in the back and then you had roses in the front or you had azaleas. The color contrast on those are absolutely gorgeous. Not only are box woods low maintenance, these are very disease resistant, so they this particular variety is very disease resistant to the box with blight. These have a high resistance to them, and they are have a high resistance to deer.
They are easily managed to whatever shape or size that you want to have them. Really if you’re going to prune them, you’re going to print them about once a year to shape them up. The hardiness zone is going to be a five to nine. Easily manage anywhere from two feet to four feet tall and wide, and they’ll do sun to shade, so it can be either in a shady condition or a sun condition.
Firelight Tidbit Hydrangea
Here we have the new firelight tidbit. Firelight tidbit is one that we brought in that. It is a little late on blooming just because they came in late in the season. Typically this would be a balloon that you would see say like in end of june into july because it is a panicle hydrangea. It blooms on new growth meaning that you’re going to guarantee to get blooms every single year.
What’s so great about firelight tidbit is that it sounds exactly it is exactly what it sounds like it’s going to be a nice little tiny petite one. It’s only going to be three feet tall three feet wide, so if you’re familiar with fire light the big daddy she will get to be like six to eight feet tall and wide and fire lights i love because they are always reliable that they turn that beautiful pink rose color for us. Fire like tidbit will do the same thing starts out this beautiful creamy white will take on the pink hues and then turns a beautiful rose color in the fall.
Full sun conditions, so at least five hours or more beautiful hydrangea a three by three would do great in a container obviously does great in the landscape as well.
Perennials
Desert Plains Grass
This is a perennial. It is going to be full sun. It will eventually get to be four feet tall and that includes little plumes, a beautiful white plume with the green foliage that’s turning onto some pinky red colors, so in the fall you’ll have a little bit of fall interest in that. It is good to leave these grasses intact all winter, and then come probably about february that’s when you’re going to prune them and basically you take them all up and give them a flat top because in the winter.
It is nice to have that beautiful kind of structure and that nice color even though it is brown it still brings the texture and the movement to your flower bed, but you want to do want to prune it back before that new growth comes out. They are hardy in zones five to nine. They bring lots of interest and texture four seasons of the year.
Cat’s Pajamas Nepota
If you’re looking to attract pollinators to your garden then you cannot go wrong with the cat’s pajamas nepota. This is in the mint family so some customers say that they do have cats and their cats love to like go and rub their face in it they like to lay on it. Easy plant to grow in your garden nice and low. It will only get to be like 12 to 14 inches tall so this is great on the border.
Massive pollinator attractor, so if you’re looking to bring in honeybees and bumble bees this is a great one to put in there. It is going to be hearty in zones three to eight and it is going to be in the full sun conditions just a fantastic beautiful plant again it smells amazing and you can’t beat it for oh it’s smell and you can even cut some and put some of these flowers in like little arrangements like a little bud vase and then you get that grape.
Daisy May Shasta Daisy
This is a great classic white shasta daisy big beautiful white blooms on it. This is september, so we’re getting to be kind of towards the end of the bloom season for these guys, so this is not in its prime by no means, but it is just a beautiful plant. This is one normally you don’t really have to deadhead your plants.
Shasta these days are ones that really do respond well if you can go in about once a week when you’re walking through your garden just have your little pruners with you and just snip off the old blooms that just encourages new growth on them but you can’t beat the classic daisy may. These are going to be hardy in zones five to nine in the full sun so absolutely beautiful great continuous bloomer fantastic.
Mums
Mums are early bloomer mid bloomer late bloomer. Basically it’s when it blooms. If it’s blooming now it’s an early bloomer, if it blooms first of october it’s going to be a mid bloomer, and when you come to the nursery you’ll see the mums and their buds will be different sizes. These buds are nice and big now. The late bloomers are going to be ones they’re going to bloom probably like in the end of october into november and their buds right now are nice and tiny.
The only thing you have to do to keep your mums happy is water them every day and they will treat you with lots and lots of balloons.
Conclusion
Fall is the perfect time to plant shrubs and perennials for a stunning spring garden. Consider options like azaleas, roses, beauty berry, boxwood, and hydrangeas for beautiful blooms and foliage. Don’t forget to add grasses and pollinator-attracting plants like nepeta and daisies for texture and life. With proper planning, you can create a garden that thrives in every season.