Left: Water wise sedums and succulents. Photo courtesy Campania International. Right: Pumpkin and vegetable silhouettes. Photo courtesy Gardner's Supply.
September the kids have gone back to school, the stores are stocked with Halloween candy, and nature is beginning to wear her new coat of yellow golds, purple reds, and smoky oranges. Inspired by cooler temperatures and softer daylight, we often decorate our homes and gardens to reflect the change in seasons. Traditional symbols of harvest flank our front porches: pumpkins on the steps, bunches of Indian corn on the front door, and mounds of chrysanthemums stuffed between the perennials. These are simple yet effective ways to transform our homes for the upcoming holidays, but we can also try new ideas with these familiar props.
Instead of orange pumpkins, Justine Marshall, Homestead Gardens’ floral production manager, suggests using white pumpkins. “White pumpkins are very different, a classier, more upscale look that will set you apart from your neighbors.” For contrast, white pumpkins can be nestled in front of dark items such as fall leaves, pinecones, brown Heucheras, or ‘Black Pearl’ ornamental peppers. “If you have a window box you can spray paint it a dark chocolate brown and fill it with grasses, dark red sunflowers, and white pumpkins,” says Justine.
Pumpkins, winter squash, and gourds can be carved, decorated, and painted. “You can spray pumpkins with a black floral spray paint and then carve them,” says Candace Rollins, manager of annuals and perennials at Behnkes’ Potomac nursery. “These are very attractive when colored, and it is a step beyond the ordinary.”
Instead of hanging Indian corn on the front door, make a wreath out of grapevine or bittersweet. “You can make fall wreaths with grapevine,” says Justine, “or unwind it to intertwine on a trellis or the side of a pergola, or wrap it around a planter for a darker, autumn look. Or you can make a wreath out of herbs, such as lavender or rosemary. You can tie dried fruits into a wreath or add dehydrated oranges for color.”
Graceful GrassesTM Carex flagellifera (Sedge) 'Toffee Twist,' Dolce® Heuchera (Coral Bells) 'Peach Melba,' Salvia officinalis (Golden Leaf Sage) 'Icterina,' and Ajuga reptans (Bugleweed) 'Black Scallop.' Photo courtesy ProvenWinners.com
Try an outdoor arrangement of dried flowers such as globe amaranth, yarrow, love-in-a-mist (seed head), gomphrena, celosia, and strawflower. Put them in a basket or carve a pumpkin to serve as a vase.
Chrysanthemums in pots are an old autumn standby that never goes out of style. “Chrysanthemums come in so many colors and add a warm inviting feeling to any porch,” says Justine. “If you don’t have a lot of yard space, you can buy mums in pots and keep them in pots or pair them with ornamental cabbage in pots.”
Chrysanthemums work especially well with farming and gardening accessories in creating large vignettes of autumn harvest. You can also create smaller vignettes with containers. The latest interest in container gardening has led to a relatively new concept of decorating for the fall. With containers, summer flowering plants can be pulled out in September or October and replaced with plants that thrive in cooler temperatures. The magic of fall can be captured in vignettes of cool-season plants typical of autumn’s palette.
“I created a container where I put Japanese Blood Grass (Imperata cylindrica) in the middle, ‘Voodoo’ and ‘Dragon’s Blood’ sedum (Sedum spurium) to trail over the side, and red and yellow pansies to look like Redskins’ colors,” explains Candace, who creates many of the instant autumn displays in containers for customers to take home.
“We also use ornamental grasses like Japanese Blood Grass or ‘White Cloud,’ a muhly grass (Muhlenbergia capillaris) that peaks at this time of year,” says Candace. Other popular grasses include Pennisetum ‘Red Riding Hood’ with its red tips and Pennisetum ‘Princess’ with its purple blades. Carex, which looks like an ornamental grass but is really a sedge, is also popular. Several varieties change color with cold weather or already have autumn shades: Carex flagellifera ‘Toffee Twist’ is the color of amber, Carex comans ‘Bronze’ is bronze colored, and Carex testacea ‘Orange Sedge’ turns from olive green to orange in the fall.
Candace freely intersperses edibles with flowers in containers. “We use ‘Red Sails’ lettuce which is completely edible and can be replaced with sage (some varieties have purple coloring) or a perennial herb after it is eaten.” Another popular edible that makes a great vertical statement in a container is Swiss chard ‘Bright Lights.’ This tall vegetable has bright yellow, orange, pink, crimson, purple, and white stalks, much like celery stalks, with dark green to purple puckered leaves.
Left, Center, Right: 'Chilly Chili' ornamental pepper, 'Autumn Joy' Sedum and 'Black Pearl' ornamental pepper. Photos courtesy Ball Horticultural Company.
Ornamental peppers are fast becoming a popular plant for fall containers because of their red pepper colors or dark foliage. ‘Black Pearl’ has glossy fruit and dark foliage, which combines well with small orange pumpkins. ‘Explosive Ember’ and ‘Purple Flash’ have dark purple foliage. ‘Trifetti,’ ‘Salsa Mix,’ ‘Chilly Chili,’ ‘Red Missile,’ and ‘Medusa’ have red peppers that combine well with orange and yellow pansies.
Another popular plant for containers is Heuchera because there are so many cultivars with foliage in autumn-like colors (‘Amber Waves’ and ‘Mahogany’) or dark, almost black foliage (‘Plum Royale’ and ‘Black Beauty’). The darker leaves contrast well with small, orange pumpkins.
Candace has found that drought tolerant sedums and succulents work well in containers, many transform from greens to reds/oranges in the cold weather. The low growing, trailing type of sedums such as ‘Angelina’ (Sedum rupestre) transforms from lime green to russet orange and large succulents such as ‘El Greco’ or ‘Imperial’ hens and chicks (Sempervivum) transform from green to red with cold.
Pansies are standard for containers, they are small enough to tuck in between plants for flower color throughout fall and into winter. Ornamental kales and cabbages are also popular but are larger and create a more dramatic effect. “The ornamental cabbage is green when we get them but as it gets colder, the centers change color to white or purple,” says Candace. “The kales look like seaweed. They are tall and upright and very dark.” Usually the cabbage is round like edible cabbage with large leaves. Ornamental kale has scalloped, wavy, or finely cut leaves and is green, green/blue, or green/purple.
It is easy to decorate your front porch or deck for autumn. By using your imagination you can transform pumpkins into vases of dried flowers or create pictures of “harvest in the country” by combining colorful chrysanthemums and old gardening tools. You can replant your containers with cool season, autumn-colored plants or you can purchase containers already planted from the nursery for an instant autumn effect.
Peggy Riccio is a Contributing Editor to ChesapeakeHome.
Contacts:
Behnkes: behnkes.com or 301-983-9200
Homestead Garden: homesteadgardens.com or 800-300-5631
