Late-season containers are the best! In fall, revisit your favorite garden centers to see what you can find. While you may expect to find mums, asters, pansies and kale, you’ll often discover other cool-weather-loving jewels you can use in your fall container combinations, too.
Get creative with fall containers
One of the best thing about fall containers is that there are almost no rules to follow. Since the plants won’t be in the pots long, you don’t need to worry about matching the light conditions or the soil and water requirements. You can even add things like pumpkins and interesting seedheads if you like. Your bottom line is that they should simply look good together.
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Cool-colored fall container with kale & mums
This beautiful mix of cool-weather plants will take frost and keep going. But deadhead the cape daisies regularly to help them bloom as long as possible. Just snip the stem as close to the crown as you can so the stub won’t show. While it’s true that mums fade as they age, they’ll continue to add color for weeks and weeks before they finally turn brown. Jacob’s ladder, a perennial, isn’t usually thought of as a trailer. To get the look above, tip the root ball a little as you plant to encourage the foliage to drape over the edge of the pot. Finally, this pansy has a naturally trailing habit — perfect at the edge of a container or even in a hanging basket. If you can’t find trailing pansies, substitute any cultivar you like.
Plant list (number to plant)
A) Cape daisy Osteospermum Serenity Dark Purple (2)
B) Mum Chrysanthemum hybrid (2)
C) Flowering kale Brassica oleracea ‘Pigeon White’ (1)
D) Pansy Viola Plentifall® Blueberry Mixture (4)
E) Jacob’s ladder Polemonium reptans ‘Touch of Class’ (1)
Pretty pansy container
In winter, not everything in a container has to be growing. You can cheat a bit and pop in colorful branches, dried seedpods, an evergreen sprig or two or even glitzed-up pine cones. The impact is fabulous and we’ll never tell!
Pansies actually do best when nights are cool, around 40 degrees F. In fall, cooler temperatures slow the pansy metabolism down so the flowers get bigger and the colors more intense. So if you live in a mild-winter area, this container will be as beautiful in February as when it was planted in November.
Plant list (number to plant)
A) Holly Ilex x meserveae Castle Spire™ ‘Hachfee’ (1)
B) Dusty miller Senecio cineraria (2)
C) Pansy Viola Delta™ Pink Shades (3)
D) Pansy Viola Delta™ Lavender Blue Shades (3)
E) Pansy Viola Delta™ Premium True Blue (2)
F) Creeping juniper Juniperus horizontalis (1)
