GARDENER'S READING ROOM
Perennials

Fall into Color in the Garden

The garden this time of the year tends to show many different shades of green. The gorgeous, summer blooming perennials have put on their display of color and faded. Bring in late blooming perennials to satisfy your need for fall color.

Heuchera 'Lime Rickey'

If you have a shade garden, Eupatorium ‘Chocolate’ offers bittersweet, chocolate-colored foliage topped with white, creampuff flowers and grows 3-5’ tall. For the eclectic gardener, Kirengeshoma palmata proudly displays large, nicely edged, palm-shaped green leaves which create a bold texture amongst other shade plants. Its dark stems dangle primrose yellow, bell-shaped flowers. Graceful groundcover Cyclamen coum has heart-shaped leaves with a silvery-pattern and dainty, fragrant, pinkish flowers held above the interesting foliage. Its close relative, Cyclamen hederifolium, has nicely edged leaves and pink flowers. Both of these little beauties grow in dry shade. Aster divaricatus, another dry shade lover, grows in clumps to 2.5’ tall, offering bright white flowers with yellow to red centers to light up a shady spot. For a festival of double rose-pink frilly flowers (which can reach a vivacious 3’), don’t forget to bring Anemone ‘Party Dress’ to your celebration of garden color. Zesty shade lover Heuchera ‘Lime Rickey’ sports chartreuse foliage into the fall with snow white flowers appearing in spring.

Tricyrtis hirta

For those gardeners with part shade to a cool sun area, presenting Cimicifuga racemosa ‘Brunette’: the purple-black foliage stands tall to wave bottle-brush white flowers blushed with pink. These fragrant flowers work well in a cut bouquet. The exotic Tricyrtis hirta has soft, slightly fuzzy leaves growing up 2-3’ arching stems. The orchid-like, star-shaped flowers are visually complex, adding a wonderful eye-catching display of color to your fall garden.

Phygelius

For a full sun spot in the garden the following perennials would perform happily. Boltonia ‘Jim Crockett’, a profuse bloomer has loads of light lavender blossoms with yellow centers and deep green foliage which is resistant to powdery mildew. To keep hummingbirds fed into the autumn, Phygelius will fill their bellies with the sweet nectar of trumpet shaped flowers blooming in an array of bright colors. Penstemon ‘Bubblegum’ will also keep the hummers happy and give your garden something delightful to chew upon. This cheery perennial displays tubular red flowers with a white throat. Or plant Penstemon ‘Blackbird’ with its evergreen leaves and it will sing into the fall with large deep purple blossoms. Many more penstemons add spectacular hues in a color hungry garden, so check them out.

Rudbeckia hirta

Also for a sunny place, Helenium ‘Mardi Gras’ will keep you warm into the fall with 3-5’ tall stems topped with yellow splashed with red-orange petals surrounding fuzzy, rounded chocolate brown cones. At the back of the garden (at 5’ tall) the jovial Helianthus will beam with large bright yellow sunflower like blossoms on dark stems with robust green leaves. To add interesting texture to the plant mix, Heliopsis ‘Lorraine Sunshine’ has white leaves with green veins and sunny yellow ray flowers. Another bright flower for the garden, Rudbeckia hirta, will give the garden a glow with large lemon-yellow to orange-yellow to rusty-yellow flowers atop large deep green leaves. After flowering the cones of rudbeckias persist for added interest in the winter. Summer-blooming Echinacea’s cones and the flowerheads of Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ also persist to enhance the winter garden with their interesting structures and with the birds they attract.

These are the missing perennials to piece together your puzzling fall garden palette. Now you can fall into color in the garden and welcome autumn with a prelude of dazzling perennials for the multi-faceted garden.

* There are many other fall blooming perennials we would be happy to show you when you come into Sky Nursery. Selection of perennials will vary.

Sedum 'Autumn Joy'	Cyclamen coum

By Kristel Dillon
Skylights Autumn 2007, Vol 22, No. 3

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