Colorful Fall Garden Bed

By: Eric Flynn

This easy-care garden plan is full of colorful fall foliage and flowers that give a stellar performance at the end of the growing season.

Fall Garden Bed Plan illustration by Carlie Hamilton: The planting around this flowering crabapple tree really shows off in fall.

Fall garden show-off

Why leave an ornamental tree standing all alone in your yard? Surround it with an island planting like this and you can guarantee a good look in every season without much work on your part! Fall is the perfect time to shop for and plant trees and shrubs — you might find great deals and get a good sense of each plant’s autumn display. Keep reading to learn more about this sunny planting that’ll tolerate well-drained to clay soil.

Plant a garden with multiseason interest

Although there is plenty of spring and summer interest here with the flowering crabapple, spirea and bush honeysuckle flowers and foliage, fall is when this bed reaches its peak. By then the foliage encore is in full swing, with deep red spirea, orange bush honeysuckle and yellow crabapple leaves. Add to that the bluebeard, dahlia, aster and black-eyed Susan flowers, and you have quite a show!

Pollinator magnet

Butterflies and bees flock to bluebeard and asters when they bloom in late summer and early autumn.

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Add bulbs for extra color in spring

For a splash of early spring color to precede the crabapple blooms, underplant the tree with pockets of early-blooming daffodils and grape hyacinths. Their relatively shallow planting depth won’t interfere with tree roots and they should naturalize quickly.

Easy-care fall color

This no-fuss group of plants doesn’t require a lot of work to stay looking good. Here are a few tips to keep this group of plants healthy:

Scratch some compost into the soil in spring
Apply a 2- to 3-in. layer of organic mulch to conserve water
Deadhead any spent blooms to keep things tidy
Remove any dead branches or stems from the tree or shrubs

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Fall garden bed plan lettered illustration by Carlie Hamilton: Stone outcroppings interrupt the clean-cut edge of this kidney-shaped bed and help integrate the planting into the lawn.

Meet the plants in this colorful fall garden bed plan

Click through the slideshow to see more details about the plants used in this garden plan.

A
Spirea (Spiraea media Double Play^® Blue Kazoo^®)

Type Shrub Blooms White flowers in late spring, deep red fall foliage Light Full to part sun Size 2 to 3 ft. tall and wide Hardiness Cold hardy USDA zones 3 to 8

B
Japanese garden juniper (Juniperus procumbens ‘Nana’)

Type Shrub Blooms Evergreen shrub; low-growing, spreading conifer with blue-green needles Light Full sun Size 6 to 12 in. tall, 60 to 72 in. wide Hardiness Cold hardy USDA zones 4 to 9

C
Bluebeard (Caryopteris x clandonensis Lil Miss Sunshine^™)

Type Shrub Blooms Amethyst blue blooms in late summer to fall, gold foliage; may die back to the ground in winter Light Full sun Size 2 to 3 ft. tall and wide Hardiness Cold hardy USDA zones 5 to 9

D
Dahlia (Dahlia ‘Gitts Crazy’)

Type Tuber Blooms Peach and red-violet blooms in late summer to fall; stake plants to prevent them from falling over, where not cold hardy, dig tubers in late fall and store indoors Light Full sun Size 48 to 72 in. tall, 18 to 24 in. wide Hardiness Cold hardy USDA zones 8 to 11

E
Bush honeysuckle (Diervilla Kodiak® Orange)

Type Shrub Blooms Small yellow flowers in summer, new foliage starts orange, fades to green, then turns red-orange in fall; prune back winter-killed stems in early spring Light Full sun to full shade Size 3 to 4 ft. tall and wide Hardiness Cold-hardy USDA zones 4 to 7, heat-tolerant AHS zones 7 to 1

F
Aromatic aster (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium ‘October Skies’)

Type Perennial Blooms Lavender-blue flowers in fall; plant in spring so plants are well-established before winter, and pinch first buds by a couple inches to encourage a more compact habit Light Full to part sun Size 18 to 24 in. tall and wide Hardiness Cold hardy USDA zones 3 to 8

G
Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia fulgida)

Type Perennial Blooms Golden-yellow flowers in late summer to fall; may require dividing every few years Light Full to part shade Size 2 to 3 ft. tall, 1 to 2 ft. wide Hardiness Cold hardy USDA zones 3 to 9

H
Flowering crabapple (Malus Sugar Tyme^™)

Type Tree Blooms Fragrant white flowers in spring followed by red berries that feed birds in fall and winter and yellow fall foliage Light Full sun Size 15 to 18 ft. tall, 10 to 15 ft. Hardiness Cold hardy USDA zones 4 to 8

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Colorful Fall Garden Bed

By: Eric Flynn

Fall garden show-off