inBloom
APRIL SHOWERS BRING FALL FLOWERS

Gaillardias, which bloom from summer to fall, come in a variety of colors including burgundy.

By Betsy Lehrdorff Scripps Howard News Service

Ahh, spring. After months of freezing weather, daffodils and violets brighten the bleak landscape. Tulips explode from tight buds, and the smell of lilacs fills the air.

Just when you start to enjoy the color and smell, the flower show ends with the arrival of summer heat. Blooms wilt and grass turns brown. But if you plan now, you’ll have a beautiful backyard sequel this fall.

"Anyone can make their garden look great in the spring," says landscape designer Jocelyn Chilvers. "But fall is the real test, and a great time to play with lots of color. The sun is starting to move lower on the horizon, and the light just makes flowers really vibrate. They really take on a special quality."

Although garden centers are full of spring plants, there also are dozens of fall blooms to choose and plant now. Dahlia tubers will become plate-sized flowers long before frost. Tiny mums will form massive domes of blooms once they mature. Other flowers are heat- and drought-tolerant, hitting their prime in the fall, no matter what summer throws at them.

Here are suggestions for some of fall’s best:

ASTER

Habit: 2 to 3 feet tall at maturity. Price: $1.99 to $4.99.

In back yards and on mountainsides, wild asters always seem to be the last to succumb to frost, their yellow centers and purple petals outlasting every other bloom. Jon Rehborg, gardens manager for Hudson Gardens and Events Center in Littleton, Colo., often uses hybrids of these daisy-like flowers to fill in blank spots as earlier bloomers retreat. There are plenty of these sun-loving plants to choose from.

Buy them in 3-1/2-inch pots at local garden centers in the spring, because they are easy to tuck into flowering beds, he says. By fall, these plants will be full size.

Favorites:

Aster novi-belgii "Professor Anton Kippenburg," grows up to 3 feet tall and offers vivid purple flowers.

A. novae-angliae "Alma Potschke," also is a tall plant, covered all over with dark pink flowers.

A. x frikartii "Purple Dome" offers blooms up to 2 inches across.

CHRYSANTHEMUM

Habit: 12 to 16 inches tall, forming mounds. Price: $2 to $20, depending on size.

Although mums are available year-round at florists’ shops, they bloom best in the fall, says Debi Borden-Miller of Welby Gardens in Denver. They are often artificially forced to flower. This is helpful in the spring and fall, because you can see the exact color of the blossoms when you grab a pot at a garden center or nursery, she says. Pop the plant in the ground and expect it to revert to a fall-blooming schedule for years to come. Spring plants are full of flowers, but become showier fall after fall. They can also be purchased and planted in autumn.

Favorites:

My Favorite Mums, developed by the University of Minnesota, produce huge, dome-shaped mounds of flowers in the fall. Available in white, coral, red and other colors.

C. x morifolium "Brandi" comes covered in uniform, dark red double blooms.

CYCLAMEN

Habit: Low, clumping mounds of leaves that produce flowers on 4- to 5-inch stems.

Price: $3.79 to $4.99 for potted plants or tubers.

Special varieties of cyclamen thrive in the garden in fall, which is surprising, considering how delicate their flowers look. When planted in the spring, they go through a period of summer dormancy before bursting into jewel-tone colors in the fall. The secret to buying cyclamen for your garden is to check the Latin words on the plant label. The large-flowered C. persicum types sold at florist shops can’t tolerate the cold, and do best indoors. C. coum blooms in late winter and early spring. But put all three together and you can enjoy exotic flowers year-round.

Favorites:

C. hederifolium comes in several varieties that produce white or pink flowers in late summer and early fall.

DAHLIA

Habit: 3 to 5 feet tall. Price: $5 to $8.

The dahlia, with its plate-sized blooms, is the drama queen of the garden. But it doesn’t have to be high-maintenance, says Scott Kunst. He has been growing heirloom varieties in Michigan for more than 10 years and offers them through his catalog, Old House Gardens (www.oldhousegardens.com). Common varieties are plentiful at local garden centers.

These top-heavy plants do need to be staked and fertilized when planted. Water regularly, soaking the soil to a depth of one foot.

Favorites:

Bishop of Llandaff was first developed in Wales in 1927. Red blooms are surrounded by bronzy green foliage.

Claire de Lune seems to proclaim innocence with a set of large yellow petals and a simple ruff of smaller petals ringing a large yellow eye.

GAILLARDIA

Habit: 18 inches high, 24 inches wide. Price: $3.99 to $19.95.

These daisy-like flowers are available in a range of colors from yellow to scarlet, and consist of domed centers fringed with a tidy row of petals. They bloom summer through fall.

Favorites:

Gaillardia "Fanfare" offered through the Jackson & Perkins catalog, seems to play up comedy with its gap-tooth appearance. "Each of the petals looks like a trumpet so it gives you almost the illusion that each petal is its own flower," says Mike Cady, one of the company’s horticulturalists. At www.jacksonandperkins.com.

G. x grandiflora or blanket flower comes in a variety of colors and is drought-tolerant. Terry Carter of Columbine Design in Englewood, Colo., likes the "Goblin" hybrid, because it blooms almost all summer and produces red-centered flowers with yellow edges.

SEA HOLLY

Habit: 2 to 3 feet tall, 10 inches wide. Price: $3.79 to $6.98; three bareroot sea holly for $19.95 plus shipping from Jackson & Perkins.

In Latin, sea holly is called Eryngium and produces thistle-like flowers. In the fall, when massed together, they create a hazy blue blanket over the garden. They also are drought- and heat-tolerant, says Jon Rehborg, gardens manager for Hudson Gardens and Events Center in Littleton, Colo. Rehborg suggests these, available in seed or as plants.

Favorites:

E. planum can be planted from seed after the last frost. Keep the seeded area moist until plants appear, then cut back on watering, he says.

Sea Holly "Hellas" is offered through www.jacksonandperkins.com.

SEDUM "AUTUMN JOY" (or stonecrop)

Habit: 2 to 2-1/2 feet tall, 8 inches across. Price: $3 to $7.

Despite a summer of heat and drought, the succu-lent Sedum "Autumn Joy" becomes huge by fall, topped with clusters of reddish flowers.

Sedums are "architectural" plants because of their rounded form, says Jocelyn Chilvers, a garden designer.

Favorites:

"Indian Chief" is another tall sedum, producing succulent, coppery leaves.

"Frosty Morn" is a new variegated form with white-rimmed leaves. Clusters of white flowers form at the top of the plant.

5 Planting tips

For more information, contact your local garden center. Jocelyn Chilvers also offers these planting tips:

Photograph your garden all summer so you become familiar with where holes will appear as spring and summer flowers stop blooming. Those will be the places to add fall-blooming plants.

Make sure to amend your soil before planting, and mulch well.

Buy fall-blooming plants in smaller sizes such as 2-1/2-inch pots. They are easier to tuck among blooming spring plants and have plenty of time to grow to maturity.

Check plant labels so you know how big the plant will be when fully grown. A plant in a small pot can easily grow 3 feet wide by summer’s end.

Follow planting instructions, ensuring the new plant is placed in the correct kind of soil and receives the proper sun, water and fertilizer it requires.