Heidi Brosseau – our retail manager submits the following blog.

Now is the time to refresh your baskets, beds and planters!

Are your containers looking a little tired?  Did your baskets fizzle in the summer heat?  Maybe you have lots of green plants and not a lot of color in that perennial border this time of year.  Dress them up & refresh them! Add some seasonal color & fall beauty to your planters, beds & borders with plants perfect for late season displays.  Here are some of our favorites!

Minnesota Hardy Mums:  They are finally here everyone.  Come and get ‘em.  Bright eye catching colors on dense compact plants.   Perfect for filling those empty spots and containers.

Asters:  A late season surprise.  The first Asters are just beginning to open their daisy style flowers.  These hardy perennials will be blooming until hard frosts come.  Providing a reliable wave of color in the fall garden.  Excellent mixed with Mums and Kale.

Grasses:  Whether you go with an annual or a perennial variety it doesn’t matter, you’re going to add graceful, elegant movement and color to your plantings.  Many varieties have both showy plumes that appear late summer to fall as well as brilliant fall color.

Sedums:  Beloved by butterflies and gardeners alike! These are the “tough guys” in the Minnesota garden.  Reliable and vigorous these succulent plants add wonderful texture with their thick leaves as well as a multitude of foliage colors and variegation.  They like to build up a little suspense, making us watch their forming buds all season long before finally showing us what they can do.

Ornamental Kale:  Color and texture are packed into these interesting members of the cabbage family.  Perfect along edges, in containers or baskets.

Heuchera, Tiarella and Heucherella:  More commonly known as Coral Bells, Foam Flower, and Foamy Bells, these wonderful plants are compact and dense with foliage that ranges from chartreuse to green, rusty peach to maroon and purple.  Some are even variegated or veined.  Awesome in containers or the landscape.  These are very versatile plants!

Ajuga:  This popular ground cover is terrific in
containers as well as the ground!  Shiny
even metallic looking leaves are amazing next to some of the softer textured
plants.

Weigela:  These compact shrubs have variegated or maroon purple foliage and they bloom in the spring.  Mature sizes will vary by variety.  Hummingbirds love them too!

Tiger Eye Sumac:  Deeply cut leaves are golden chartreuse and turn orange with red in the fall.  Amazing paired with some of the darker leaves shrubs and perennials.

Hydrangeas:  What wonderful additions to the landscape!  Hydrangeas bloom from summer until frost and go through many, butterfly attracting, stages of beauty along the way.  The Hydrangea paniculata prefer full to part sun and send out white or lime green buds that open to a beautiful clean ivory that matures to a lovely mauve pink.  As our nights get cooler and the flowers dry they become a parchment color that carries us into winter.

Many of the plants I have listed above are Minnesota hardy.  If you use them in a container planting or basket remember, you can plant them in your landscape before winter and enjoy them for years to come.

I should mention that in Minnesota our winters are too cold for most plants to overwinter in an above ground container.   Proper planting and mulching before the ground freezes will help your perennial plants come through the winter!