Fall Flower Colors

While spring often receives the most credit for being a flower gardener's favorite season, fall flower gardeners can also choose from a variety of colorful flowers to spruce up the garden.

Here's a look at one-half dozen garden flowers, any or all of which could be considered fall favorites.

Cyclamen: a genus of small, flowering plants native to Eurasia, the Mediterranean and North Africa.

They are popular house plants as well as small, colorful additions to a fall garden. Outdoors they grow best in USDA Zones 5 to 9.

Dahlias: a genus of herbaceous flowering plants belonging to the daisy family (Asteraceae), one of the two largest plant families in the world.

Dahlias are new world plants, native to Mexico and Central America. Today there are thousands of varieties, ranging from daisy to sunflower size, with colors ranging the full spectrum.

Although they are warm weather plants, Dahlias can be grown in most areas of the United States. In high frost areas, they are grown as annuals. Their summer and fall blooms brighten up many gardens.

Dahlias are the national flower of Mexico.

Gladiolus: native flowering plants of the Mediterranean area and Southern Africa, are one of many popular garden flowers in the Iris family.

Botanists have been cultivating different varieties for hundreds of years, leading to the many different colorful spikes of flowers that now grace gardens everywhere.

Like other iris species, they are also fairly easy to grow. As long as they are set in a sunny patch of well drained soil, they normally sprout like weeds.

While Gladiolus are popular summer flower, in USDA zones 6-8, their colorful, statuesque presence compliments a fall garden filled with asters and mums.

Fuchsia: a genus of flowering plants in the Evening Primrose family (Onagraceae).

Most of the over one hundred Fuchsia species are native to Central and South America.

Generally Fuchsia grow in temperate climates, not too hot, not too cold. Most varieties bloom in the fall, producing beautiful shades of pink, red, white and/or purple.

Different varieties can be grown as basket flowers, others grow as perennial garden trees and shrubs.

Many West Coast coastal areas provide optimal fuchsia growing conditions, making them a favorite garden flower. They attract hummingbirds.

Montbretia: a genus (Crocosmia) of garden flowers in the iris family native to South Africa.

They are popular garden flowers that have become naturalized in many coastal areas of the United States from Florida to Oregon.

The top picture shows a species with bright orange flowers that grow on spikes. The photo's background shows the plant's long and thin leaves.

In the wild, they can bloom from summer through fall (until the first frost). Care needs to be taken because they can be aggressive, forming large clumps of plants.

Their tubular flowers attract hummingbirds. For gardening use, a variety of hybrids are available in many colors.

Mums: short hand term for chrysanthemum, and the term literally represents hundreds of different varieties with many looks and colors.

They are a very popular fall flower. Typical varieties have shallow roots and grow hardy in sunny areas with well drained soil.

The December 1893 volume of The Western Garden offered some mum growing advice that applies even today.

"The secret in growing "mums" is to keep them growing when once started, never allowing them to receive any kind of a check. To pot them into larger pots as soon as they need it. To feed them with liquid fertilizer often as soon as they commence to form buds and if you want fancy blooms to disbud."

© 2011 Patricia A. Michaels