I have a confession: when it comes to picking a favorite season, I’m as indecisive as they come. Winter, spring, summer—I love them all. Autumn, though, has a special beauty of its own.
Although we can’t boast of having the kaleidoscope of color that New England has this time of year, autumn in western Washington can be beautiful as well. As a gardener, you can take advantage of the season; with a little planning, you can make autumn the most colorful time of year in your garden.
With summer vacations over and kids back in school, now is the time to start working in your yard again. After a glorious summer, we can only hope that the beautiful weather continues well into autumn. As you start to work in your garden again, you’ll likely see some areas that could use fresh color.
Spring and summer are great seasons for those of us who enjoy bright annuals; however, if you need to add some autumn color to your landscape, you have a full menu of options to choose from as well.
One of my favorite fall plants is truly a showstopper. A nondescript woody shrub through spring and summer, the Burning Bush will be sure to turn heads in October as its leaves turn fiery red. Due to the unremarkable foliage it carries in spring and summer, you may wish to plant a Burning Bush toward the back of a sunny bed and plant smaller ornamental plants in front. Or, if you need a low hedge across part of your yard and don’t mind bare branches in winter, Burning Bush is an easy-to-prune alternative to evergreen hedges. Either way, the addition of the Burning Bush to your landscape will certainly provide striking fall color.
Another of my fall favorites is the maple. The northeast part of the United States can certainly attest to the beauty that maple trees display in autumn. Maybe you don’t have the room in your yard, though, to grow a full-size maple. That’s okay—you have plenty of options to choose from with smaller Japanese Maples. My favorite is “Sango Kaku,” the Coral Bark Japanese Maple. With fall color in shades of red, orange and yellow, this variety of Japanese Maple will also give you beauty long after it drops its leaves; with winter comes striking coral red color to the branches of the tree. And that’s just one variety of Japanese Maple; many other red- and green-leaf varieties--like "Bloodgood," "Seiryu," and "Suminagashi" also exhibit beautiful autumn color.
If you like perennials and wish to add some color for fall to your garden, you have plenty of options as well. Many varieties of perennial grasses have their best display in early autumn, exhibiting feathery plumes and colorful foliage. Several varieties of sedum such as “Autumn Joy” are just beginning to open their buds and will bloom well into fall.
As you begin to work in your garden again, remember a couple of things. First, if you plan right, autumn can be the best time of year to plant. Watering is easier to keep up on, cooler temperatures mean less transplant stress, and with a dose of slow-release fertilizer, plants will get well established before winter.
Secondly, autumn can be a great time to shop for plants! At Vander Giessen Nursery, we have our fall clearance sale this time of year (see website for details), and you can make your gardening budget stretch much further while getting great plants. This fall, visit us at your local independent garden center for help with choosing from the wide variety of plants you can add to your landscape for an additional season of color.
Happy planting!
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