Late-season blooms for a colourful fall garden

Larry's favourites

All dimensions height x width

Hubricht’s blue star (Amsonia hubrichtii)
60 to 90 cm x 60 to 90cm; moist, well-drained soil; Zone 5
With its narrow, willow-like leaves turning a beautiful clear yellow in fall and holding their colour for weeks, and equally beautiful, star-shaped, blue flowers in late spring, this is one of the most stunning late-season perennials.

Firecracker fall mums (Chrysanthemum Firecracker Series)
40 to 75 cm x 11 m; moist, well-drained soil; Zone 3
Cushion mums are traditional fall garden plants but have not always been hardy enough to survive in many Canadian gardens. With the new Firecracker Series, developed by Jeffries Nurseries of Manitoba, most gardeners can now grow these mounds for autumn colour.

Dwarf burning bush (Euonymus alatus ‘Compactus’)
1.5 to 1.8 m x 1.2 to 1.8 m; well-drained soil; Zone 2
This classic garden shrub has the most intense fall foliage colour of any shrub—an unbeatable deep cherry red. It can die back severely in harsh winters in Zones 2 and 3, but it comes right back up.

Sugar Tyme crabapple (Malus ‘Sutyzam’)
4.5 to 6 m x 13 to 5 m; moist, well-drained soil; Zone 4
One of the new generation of disease-resistant crabapples, Sugar Tyme produces pink-budded, scented, white flowers in spring and hundreds of marble-sized, bright red fruit in fall, which persist throughout much of the winter.

Tiger Eyes sumac (Rhus typhina ‘Bailtiger’)
2 m x 2.3 m; well-drained soil; Zone 4
A striking new shrub, Tiger Eyes has palm-like, deeply cut foliage that is golden yellow in summer and brilliant red and orange in fall. And best of all, it spreads much more slowly than other sumacs and is not considered invasive.

Read more in Plants and Perennials