Most of the plants in my outdoor pots have thrown in the trowel.
Pastel purple petunias are leggy and lackluster. Pale pink begonias are on a long break from blooming. And most of the petite lobelia have been smothered by bigger bully plants.
It's time to trade out the summer pastels for autumn reds, oranges and browns.
I headed to Bachman's Fall Ideas House in Minneapolis to see what the pros had planted in the containers lining the sidewalks and on the front porch.
Susie Bachman, a company V.P., suggested mixing dried, artificial and live plants in your fall-flavored pots.
Try some of these ingredients:
- Purple fountain grass for a vertical centerpiece. If you already have a clump in your summer pot – you're off to a good start.
- Millet, a lower growing ornamental grass.
- Dried lotus pods on stems
- Orange celosia
- Ornamental kale
- Yellow-gold rudbeckia
- Artificial orange and red fall leaves
- English ivy cascading over the edge
- Gold and wine hued garden mums
- Tuck in gourds and mini pumpkins
For a window box:
- Toffee Twist grass
- Small merlot and gold hued mums
- Purple kale
- Dried pomegranates and seed pods on stems
- English ivy cascading over the edge
- Intertwine dried grapevine
- Tuck in mini pumpkins and gourds
Simple – and super easy:
