Blooms to keep your garden beautiful to the bitter end
By September, some gardens (and gardeners) are looking a little tired. Most of the perennials have finished blooming, but you can extend the show well into fall with a few late-bloomers. Here’s a peek at some exceptional plants that go beyond the typical ornamental kale, mums and pansies.
SALVIA FARINACEA ‘VICTORIA’ (MEALYCUP SAGE)
This annual has bloomed since mid-May in our garden and will continue right up to the first fall frost. It’s a favorite of butterflies, like the swallowtail in the photo, and bees. Stand back and watch the pollinators, including migrating hummingbirds, sip from the blossoms. Grow it in pots
in the ground. Bonus: Cut the individual flower stems, remove the leaves, tie the stems together and hang them in a dark, dry place, and they’ll keep their blue colors for dried winter arrangements.
Plant in full sun to light shade. Reaches about 20 inches tall and 12 inches wide.
ALLIUM ‘OZAWA’ (ORNAMENTAL ONION)
“Personally, I like Allium ‘Ozawa’ and Schizachyrium scoparium ‘Prairie Blues’ and just about every aster there is for fall,” says landscape architect Scott Mehaffey of Flossmoor, Ill.
Plant in full sun to part shade. Reaches 6 to 12 inches tall and wide. Hardy in zones 4 to 9.
SYMPHYOTRICHUM LAEVE (SMOOTH ASTER)
This plant is a butterfly magnet. “Smooth aster is a gorgeous cut flower and is one of the most attractive and longlived of all the asters,” says Miriam Goldberger of Wildflower Farm in Coldwater, Ontario ( www.wildflowerfarm.com
Plant in full sun to part shade. Reaches 3 to 4 feet tall and 2 to 3 feet wide. Hardy in zones 4 to 8.
HYDRANGEA PANICULATA ‘JANE’ (LITTLE LIME HYDRANGEA)
“The lime flowers turn to white and then to a blush pink as the weather gets cooler,” says Katrina Chipman, horticulture coordinator at The Morton Arboretum ( www. mortonarb.org
Plant in part to full sun. Reaches between 3 and 6 feet tall and wide. Hardy in zones 3 to 8.
ANEMONE X HYBRIDA ‘HONORINE JOBERT’ (WINDFLOWER)
Fall-blooming anemones are a favorite of Susy Stone, perennial plant manager at Lurvey’s Garden Center in Des Plaines, Ill. The plants bloom in September and October. “I love the clean, delicate flowers on the anemone — they move with the most gentle winds and are beautiful and long-lasting as a cut flower.”
Plant in full sun to part shade. Reaches 3 to 4 feet tall and 1 1/2 to 2 feet wide. Hardy in zones 4 to 8.
SCHIZACHYRIUM SCOPARIUM ‘PRAIRIE BLUES’ (LITTLE BLUESTEM)
“This grass provides a great bluish color contrast to all of the saturated greens of late summer, then gradually takes on a rosy-orange tinge as autumn progresses,” Mehaffey says. “This particular cultivar is a little relaxed in form, and there are others, like ‘Standing Ovation’ and ‘Carousel’ that stay more upright. Little bluestem has been the focus of breeding work in recent years, and there are named selections with various attributes, but all of them share native plant hardiness and wonderful color through fall and winter.”
Plant in full sun, welldrained soil. Reaches 2 to 3 feet tall and about 18 inches wide. Hardy in zones 3 to 10.