Obsession with Fall Color

When cold nights return and the summer feeling is fleeting, many of us crave that lasting garden setting. Fall is a great time for planting to ensure you keep the garden color party dancing. There are tree, shrub, perennial, annual, and even bulb additions that can endure many cold nights. Even just one or two can really add that third or fourth season element you need.
 
Statue canopy trees, like red or orange maples; a unique larch, my favorite; or an ancient ginkgo, can really add strength and structure to the garden or yard. They tower over the rest, lending an upward glow that can leave us mesmerized. Understory gems, such as the birch and the crab apple, can sprawl and spread some autumn light to the lower canopy or take over some taller stature if allowed. Of notable mention is the river birch, exfoliating cinnamon bark capped in fresh green leaves that turn and sway until they crest a golden yellow. This smaller tree loves to dwell in your rainwater or depression site, drinking all that water. Regardless of your addition, these grand beauties will stand the test of time, adding structure and providing shade. 
 
Shrubs that provide stunning displays and graduating levels of fall show, as well as summer privacy, run the gamut of shapes and sizes. Favorites include the fall-blooming witch hazel, highbush cranberry, gray dogwood, hydrangeas, mounding honeysuckle, Bronxensis forsythia, beauty berry, and blueberies. These delicately branching foundations shift, shape, and soften the mid-story, offering flowers and interest at eye level. This stance, combined with a frost-sparked ongoing leaf change and hard-to-come-by things, like purple leaves, flowers after frost, or berries that last through February, make these additions seem like staples. Planting many or a few, you will not be disappointed.
 
While the gaze has been mesmerizing looking up and out so far, let’s not forget the importance of the herbaceous floor. There are some solid stunners that can provide volumes unknown from their previous state. Grasses, like little bluestem or red Shenandoah switch grass, can provide color pallets that stand to rival any winter white. Late bloomers, like monk’s hood, asters, or anemones, can dapple our grounds with flowers well beyond the rest. They remain abuzz and ahum with beneficial pollinators and an upright presence that makes us feel winter could not be farther off. Some posture their change in leaves of the most dazzling hues, like Huechera, Geranium, Epimedium, and Amsonia, standing until the hardest frost has hit for the second or third time. They can flow or sway across the garden in swaths or singularly as they dazzle the days away between frost and snow.
 
I can happily report a few annuals that also buck up and handle our Wisconsin winters with gusto! Snapdragons have won my heart over, seeding out happily and even showing perennial quality in their spring growth from dormant state. Yes, left over winter, they march into the cold with their heads held high and buds on the way. Other continual bloomers include dahlias, flowering kale, and reliable pansies, which are also likely to return in the spring. These annuals can lend the fill for the spaces that mean the most to you or spill out of the planters you just can’t quite let go of yet.  
 
Fall crocus is the most popular bulb addition for autumn. They are planted in the fall, so you often wait one whole year before blooms, but once they start, they are off! It is an enchanted purple that seems to come from nowhere and surprises you annually.  
 
I hope you find some additions among these that make your gardens sing until the bitter cold sets in. Happy frost dancing! And don’t forget to leave the leaves for all your pollinators until late next spring.

Birch Tree

Gray Twig Dogwood

Snapdragons

Asters

Narrowleaf Blue Star Amsonia is a delicate backdrop to these pink anemones.

Larch

Red and Orange Maples

Karina Mae is the designer and team leader at Garden Search and Rescue.

Garden Search & Rescue

Madison, WI
608.438.9571
gardensearchandrescue.com