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Garden Plants For Fall Color Cont.

Summer to early Fall, atop the sturdy stems you get a flower head of individual blossoms that draw the remaining butterflies and hummingbirds to your garden. Because of its height, you may want to consider staking your plants because the blossoms can bend them over. Also, cutting the plant partially back in June can delay the blossoming and possibly make for a shorter plant but this is not necessary to do as a matter of normal growing.

Hardy Mums
Chrysanthemum
Every year, eager homeowners rush out at the first hint of cold weather to buy pots of mums only to have the flowers fade in a week. Although these are fine for a show of color on a porch, the real show of fall color comes from hardy mums planted in a perennial bed which, year after year, feature delicious blooms in a 2- to 3-foot-tall, free-form habit. They require very little care, cutting back the dead stalks in early spring and cutting them back to half their size in early July. Garden mums are hardy from Zones 3 to 9. They prefer organic, well-drained soil sited in full sun in the North and at least half a day of sun in the South. A one gallon pot of hardy mums can easily spread to a size of 3 feet by 3 feet in a year and, unlike potted mums, they can provide flowers for a month.

Aster

Asters come in many varieties, sizes from short to tall and many colors, with shades of purple being predominant. Asters are great as a companion plant to Rudbeckia (Black-eyed Susan). In early Fall, the purple flowers of the Aster are wonderful mixed in with the fading yellow blooms of the Rudbeckia. Asters are one of the 'must haves' in a fall garden due to the numerous and long lasting flowers. In the South they prefer part shade although they can handle quite a bit of sun when grown in fertile well drained soil. Asters require little care, cutting back dead stalks in early spring and cutting back about one half of the growth in early July. Most Asters have a clumping style of growth so they will require dividing every 2 or 3 years. Failure to divide can lead to a decline in growth and blooming.

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