After a long summer, plenty of porch containers and garden beds are looking worse for wear and in need of a seasonal spruce up. As the green fades, local garden centers are seeing gardeners turn to tried and true cold weather classics to decorate as they begin the task of preparing their gardens for winter.
“This year we had a really hot, dry summer, so a lot of people are complaining about how terrible their annuals look,” Plant Masters of Suttons Bay General Manager Crystal VanThomme said. “So that’s why we’re looking forward to getting into the fall plants. Even mine on my front porch are just starting to look worn and weathered.”
VanThomme said mums and other cold tolerant annuals including pansies, snapdragons, ornamental kale and ornamental cabbage, are among the most popular choices this time of the year.
“It’s fun combos,” she said. “We have them all separate so you can choose your own, or we have combinations already made up…We love to help people pick out things for their containers and put combinations together…There’s a lot of knowledge that we pack in here and we can share that with folks.”
While mums are a familiar sign of fall, VanThomme said many gardeners may not realize they can also be planted in the ground. Hardy varieties can establish roots before winter and may return the following year. However, not every mum is hardy enough to make it through the cold, so make sure to double check before bringing one home.
At CountrySide Gardens in Cedar, coowner Chloe Near said their fall selection is relatively small, with mums also making up most of their offering this year.
The mums are sold pre-potted so that customers can plant them or keep them in their decorative containers. They also offer half-bushel planters of mums featuring purple fountain grass growing from the center, adding height and texture along with another splash of color to break up the reds and yellows.
CountrySide also grew several dwarf varieties of black-eyed Susans this year that are shorter than traditional varieties but produce larger blooms. Near said that the new varieties have sold well and they’re about halfway through the supply.
For customers who don’t want the standard fall palette, Near said to look at “our black eyed Susans but also we have some of our mums in a purple color if they already have the yellow and oranges,” she said.
For those planting perennials this fall, Near encourages getting them into the ground and mulched while there is still enough time for the roots to become established before a hard frost.
Annabelle Needham, garden center manager at Northwoods Hardware in Glen Arbor, recommends hardy mums as the best bet for fall color as well.
But as winter is coming up, gardeners are beginning to think beyond decoration and prepare their existing landscapes for winter. Customers are picking up burlap to protect trees, deer fencing and winter fertilizer for lawns.
She also cautioned gardeners against being too aggressive with fall cleanup.
“A lot of people think you should cut back the ornamental grasses in the fall, but it’s actually better to wait until spring,” Needham said. “It’s good practice to just let your perennials die off for the season and deal with them in the spring, because that protects the plant better through the winter.”
Depending on the plant, mulch or other protection can also help it survive through the winter as well.
For anyone who wants something different than mums, Needham suggests a fall sunflower type bloom called a Sunbeckia which can carry more of a summer look into the fall.
