All the Annuals You Should Plant Right Now in the Fall.
I’m not ready to rent out my garden for the winter. I know how exciting it is to see Halloween candy in stores and start thinking about holiday decor, but I’m still stuck in summer. So I continue to add color to my fall garden and you can too. Here are a few reliable annuals that will keep your garden vibrant until frost (and in some cases, longer).
Salvia
My friend Cynthia, who runs a popular greenhouse on 42nd Street in Salt Lake City, once advised me to plant as many salvias as possible. Since Cynthia is my flower guru , I listened. Red salvia attracts hummingbirds, rises about a foot above the ground in flowering spiers, and adds a pop of color to your garden.
Stock
One of the most unfairly underrated flowers. You should go to a flower shop, ask to buy it right away, stick your nose in it and smell it. I’ve been obsessed with products since I worked in a flower shop in college. These erect flowers look like smaller, more compact versions of snapdragons, but smell magical. They are solitary flowers, meaning each plant produces one flower and pruning will only kill the plant. Enjoy a single bloom and then let it die.
Pansies and violas
Throw away used petunias and replace them with similar but hardy pansies or violas. While pansies are good here, albeit for a short period of time, they will bring low spots of purple, blue and yellow to your yard. I recommend keeping them in pots, flower pots and at the edges of the garden otherwise they will get lost, but they look great as accessory plants.
Nasturtiums
If you plant nasturtiums in your garden, they will live there forever. They self-seed and come back year after year, but that is a blessing, not a curse. Nasturtiums act as aphid traps for other plants, luring them away from feeding. Nasturtium flowers are delicious, and the seeds can be pickled into capers .
Ornamental kale and cabbage
You won’t catch me eating cabbage, but I will grow it for my yard. It is an ornamental, inedible cabbage with frills, spikes and ruffles in bright pink, cream and yellow hues against a background of bright green.
Peas
Although you don’t have enough time to get another batch of sweet peas, you can still get regular edible peas that will have their little sweet purple and white flowers. Use them on slatted areas because they will want to get up and need support.
Sweet Alyssum
Alyssum is one of the sacred trio of beneficial plants in my garden (nasturtium, alyssum and marigolds), each of which provides a specific service to your other plants by either repelling pests or keeping them away from other plants. That would be reason enough to plant it, but it’s also magical in the garden. When you buy starters, they are small plugs with ten or so tiny flowers. Alyssum will bloom into giant, puffy clouds of tiny flowers that will spread across your garden beds. While white alyssum is the most prolific and hardy, there are pink and purple versions that are also lovely (but aren’t as plump and don’t tend to overwinter).