It’s Not Too Early to Think About Your Fall Garden

I know I sound crazy. Spring has barely sprung and I’m already suggesting you plan your fall garden? Listen, I’m not advocating against being present for the miracle that is springtime. On the contrary, we should all revel in it! 

But just as we take steps in the autumn months to prepare for spring (like planting spring-blooming bulbs!), there are things we can do now to ensure a fall garden worth looking forward to. To fight off the relentless march of time, it helps to be prepared. Rather than dreading the days getting shorter, you can look forward to a colorful autumnal refresh.

And, here in the Bay Area, fall is often hotter than summer. Last year I had roses blooming and peppers ripening in November! I realized I wasn’t fully taking advantage of our long growing season. But even if you live in a colder climate, there are many fall-friendly plants to choose from.

Read on for a selection of plants that excel in autumnal containers and seeds you can proactively sow now for display and harvest in your fall garden.

Plants that love fall

Let’s put off grappling with our complicated emotions around fall until it arrives and focus for now on plants that love crisp mornings, golden light, and a gourd-based color palette (except for actual gourds, which we will not be covering because I’m not that ambitious). 

In my post on creating a summer planter out of an old firepit, I touched on the “thrill, fill, and spill” concept for designing mixed planters. It’s a great approach for rotating seasonal planters and I’ve used it to organize my fall garden plant suggestions below.

Fantastic fall thrillers include snapdragons and the ornamental cabbages and kales. The latter can handle full sun and will eventually bolt with funny, futuristic-looking flowers. Snapdragons prefer some shade and provide gorgeously scented cut flowers for months on end, plus they come in any color your heart desires. 

Fuchsia is a great filler that also likes shade and blooms well into the fall, adding jewel tones and flair to your autumn garden. There are many varieties of fuchsia, so make sure you choose one that suits your container; some even have a trailing habit, making them spiller contenders as well. 

A classic cool-season spiller or filler, unfussy heuchera (a.k.a. coral bells) comes in a range of autumnal colors and can handle sun or shade. You don’t need a maple tree to enjoy rusty-toned foliage on your balcony.

Garden centers will be bursting with heuchera and ornamental cabbage come September, so you can just mentally pencil them in for now. But snapdragons and fuchsia are currently available, and it’s best to get them established early for a more impressive fall display. I’ve kept up a perennial fuchsia for the past two years and will be planting some snapdragons into my pots shortly. I expect both to flower from late spring through October.

Late season seeds

I started a second round of seeds last weekend (March 26^th) that should be ready to plant out in early summer and hit their stride just in time for my fall garden. They’re my “late bloomers.” In other parts of the world, they would be considered late summer plants, but I know that here they’ll last well into autumn.

Peppers deliver culinary and decorative delight in the Bay Area’s warm fall weather. Their charm-like pendant fruits come in a wide range of colors, sizes, and shapes, with many compact varieties especially suited to containers.

Last year, I learned my lesson about starting loads of tomatoes and peppers in February when you’re going to be out of town for all of July. I shall not repeat my folly. 

Instead, I am starting just one reliable pepper variety now: cayenne, which I hope to harvest in August once we’re back from Italy. I’ve set aside pots for two plants, which ought to produce enough fruit for a lovely jar of dried chili flakes.

Marigolds also embody fall with their orange and yellow petals and traditional association throughout Mexico with Day of the Dead on November 1^st and 2^nd. I sowed one round of a classic orange pom-pom variety in mid-February and will sow another in mid-April to ensure I don’t go without their bright accent color and pest-repelling properties from summer until Thanksgiving.

Lastly, I hope to repeat the success of last year’s Tower Chamois Apricot Asters. They were stunning by mid-August, so hopefully by starting the seeds a little later I’ll be in for an early fall show. Taking the place of my spring and summer annuals, their fluffy, peachy blooms should look amazing alongside the marigolds and snapdragons of my fall garden.

Tower Chamois Apricot is a cultivar of China aster, which are often grown as colorful summer annuals. However, you might consider perennial North American asters which provide even later blooms, plus food for pollinators. It sounds like these low-maintenance autumnal beauties do well in pots, too!

Final fall considerations

Along with the above plants and seeds, there also spring-planted, summer-blooming geophytes (plants that grow from bulbs, tubers, corms, rhizomes, etc.) to consider as additions to your fall garden.

Many of these plants will flower in August and September if planted out in May. I suspect that in the Bay Area, where we have cool summers and warm autumns, we could get away with planting them in June for fall flowers. 

Last year, I added gladiola corms to my pots, with impressive results. Dahlias are another wildly popular spring-planted option, which I’ve never grown before. I’m honestly a bit torn though, as I’m short on space. What do you think? Should I give dahlias a try? 

Even if you’re not mentally ready to actively work on your fall garden now, a little forward-thinking visualization never hurts. In my opinion, daydreaming is half of the fun of gardening. Let me know your favorite autumnal plants in the comments!