Fall garden show-off
Why leave an ornamental tree standing all alone in your yard? Surround it with an island planting like this and you can guarantee a good look in every season without much work on your part! Fall is the perfect time to shop for and plant trees and shrubs — you might find great deals and get a good sense of each plant’s autumn display. Keep reading to learn more about this sunny planting that’ll tolerate well-drained to clay soil.
Plant a garden with multiseason interest
Although there is plenty of spring and summer interest here with the flowering crabapple, spirea and bush honeysuckle flowers and foliage, fall is when this bed reaches its peak. By then the foliage encore is in full swing, with deep red spirea, orange bush honeysuckle and yellow crabapple leaves. Add to that the bluebeard, dahlia, aster and black-eyed Susan flowers, and you have quite a show!
Pollinator magnet
Butterflies and bees flock to bluebeard and asters when they bloom in late summer and early autumn.
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Add bulbs for extra color in spring
For a splash of early spring color to precede the crabapple blooms, underplant the tree with pockets of early-blooming daffodils and grape hyacinths. Their relatively shallow planting depth won’t interfere with tree roots and they should naturalize quickly.
Easy-care fall color
This no-fuss group of plants doesn’t require a lot of work to stay looking good. Here are a few tips to keep this group of plants healthy:
- Scratch some compost into the soil in spring
- Apply a 2- to 3-in. layer of organic mulch to conserve water
- Deadhead any spent blooms to keep things tidy
- Remove any dead branches or stems from the tree or shrubs
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Meet the plants in this colorful fall garden bed plan
Click through the slideshow to see more details about the plants used in this garden plan.