Some good fall annuals include pansies, verbena, and mums, which are great for borders, mass plantings, and containers.
Replace Summer Annuals With Fall-Friendly Options
For uninterrupted color and interest, plant fall friendly-flowers such as pansies, verbena, mums, cabbages, and flowering kale in their place. Bring herbs inside once the weather cools down to protect them from the cold.
Autumn is a great season for annuals, low-maintenance perennials and evergreen shrubs to shine. In fact, some of the most popular flowers, like colorful mums, roses, dahlias, purple pansies and yes, even bright yellow sunflowers, all bloom around September and October.
Garden Mums
Chrysanthemums are a classic choice for fall porches and patios. They are easy to grow and loaded with flowers in red, yellow, purple, orange, white, pink, and more. Morgana Red has beautiful dark red flowers that attract butterflies.
"Fall is an excellent time to plant almost any perennial, with the exception of many ornamental grasses, which are better planted in spring," says Erin Schanen, Troy-Bilt's gardening partner, a master gardener volunteer and creator of The Impatient Gardener blog and YouTube channel.
Tip. Mid- to late-August is often an excellent time to plant fall flowers, as long as the weather isn't still so hot that the plants will suffer heat stress.
Plants that need a winter rest include banana, begonia, caladium, calla, canna, colocasia, dahlia, ginger, gladiolas, and sweet potato vine. Don't let a cold North Dakota winter kill your favorite tender perennial plants this year. Bring them inside, quarantine them, and keep them as houseplants for the winter.
Shrubs, deciduous trees, the grass in your yard, evergreens, and the plants in your garden all adapt themselves to seasonal changes.
Late summer or early fall is an excellent time to plant mums, one of the symbolic flowers of the season. Practically any time in September that strikes your fancy is a good bet, so long as it's at least six weeks before the year's first frost.
Gardening in the fall provides a longer period with more 'good' days, as compared to the often tumultuous spring season. Plus, if you plant in fall you'll end up ahead of the game and won't have to rush to get everything done after winter. In fact, a good strategy is to plant perennials when you plant your fall bulbs.
Asters. These beautiful fall-flowering perennials are a lovely companion planting to chrysanthemums, the other stars of the autumn garden. Give asters full sun, and water to get them established (but don't overdo it; they don't like soggy feet).
Although each plant's needs may vary and some will be more winter-hardy than others, in general about a month before the last fall frost is sufficient in giving the plant enough time to establish itself and take root.
VIOLA (Viola spp.) Like their pansy cousins, violas will keep on blooming through frosty weather and even a dusting of snow. In moderate climates, they will often bloom all winter long.
Also, do not cut back hardy perennials like garden mums (Chrysanthemum spp.), anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum), red-hot poker (Kniphofia uvaria), and Montauk daisy (Nipponanthemum nipponicum). Leave the foliage. It's important to protect the root crowns over winter.
Asters (Aster Spp.)
One very popular variety is Aster 'Celeste', which forms a clump covered with dense purple daisy-like flowers in late summer and early fall.
Profusion Zinnias (Z.
All zinnias thrive in hot weather, but Profusion zinnias keep on blooming well into fall, whatever the weather. Profusion White, Orange and Cherry, which have daisy-like flowers, each have won multiple garden awards.
Think about ways to add color and draw beneficial insects to your fall gardens. Consider planting nasturtiums, marigolds, asters, cosmos, mums, and anemones. Plan out your fall pots and planters. Summer blooms are fading, but there are many opportunities to add color and visual interest to your landscape.