Fall Garden Design for Year-Round Beauty

Indigo Deany | North Forty News

Summer daytime temperatures are still lingering, but there is no denying that fall is squarely upon us. While you may associate fall gardening with tedious cleanup and mourning for plants that didn’t make it through the heat of summer, it doesn’t all need to be heavy sighs and “getting to it.” Autumn is my favorite season of the year and I prefer to give myself grace and enjoy the fall garden for its changing beauty. 

Witnessing the transformations of color and form into more subtle but no less dynamic iterations is, after the riotous chaos of spring and summer, a balm to the weary gardening soul.

When observing your changing fall garden, notice what plants are doing after the flower show. What do they look like as they enter dormancy? Do they disappear almost completely, to nothing more than a root crown and bedraggled brown leaves? Do they leave behind a twisting, upright skeleton of woody arms and seed head hair?

Are they golden brown or charcoal black? There is no wrong way for a plant to be dormant in the garden, but an entire garden bed that dies back to the ground can look desolate in October, let alone February. The addition of low-growing woody plants, such as Pawnee Buttes sandcherry, not only promises architectural interest through winter, but can put on a spectacular display of fiery autumn color even after your perennials have finished blooming. 

In fact, planning your garden design around fall performance can improve your garden year-round. You’ll be thinking about structure and texture more intensively than just bloom color, which is a trap we so easily fall into. Considering texture and form will always improve the overall effect of a garden, even the bloomiest one. Ornamental grasses, woody shrubs and trees, and a variety of sturdy herbaceous perennials are key elements of the autumn garden that will improve your overall garden design. Even in an established garden, you can always add one element that will shine in the fall. 

Some plant combinations that look good year round and outright stun in the autumn include:

• Autumn Brilliance serviceberry, Powis Castle artemisia, and Snow Flurries aster
  The serviceberry has graceful architecture and beautiful red leaves, the artemisia has soft, silver foliage that shimmers in the breeze, and the asters form a fall carpet of charming white daisies. All three plants have attractive foliage and structure all year, and can be interplanted with spring and summer bloomers like iris and verbascum.
• Plum Dazzled sedum, October Skies aster, and Apache Rose switchgrass
  The deep purple, succulent foliage of the sedum is covered in vibrant dark pink blooms throughout autumn, which complement the cool lavender, airy blooms of the aster. Stay in the world of soothing purples with the burgundy switchgrass and you’ll have a visually cohesive planting that provides structure and habitat all year.