The Autumn Rush

Autumn offers a wide range of choices for creative inspiration

There is more to autumn than just Mums. True, Mums are important to the autumn market, but they are only half of the season. There is another half that enhances what Mums can do and extends beyond that for greater inspiration. It doesn’t matter if you are a garden center or landscaper, if you design for containers or public displays, or if the plants enhance a home or community event. A simple walk through the greenhouses shows a number of creative choices available for your work, shipping right now.

Calibrachoa ‘Superbells Dreamsicle’

THE FLOWERS

Color is usually the centerpiece for most designs, so we select flowers that go into furious bloom in the upcoming months. For many plants, autumn provides the important cues of short days and cool nights to trigger vigorous flowering. You can also see that we focus our production on the harvest/holiday color themes of yellow, orange, and red, along with important contrasts of blue and purple.

Good Examples of Color for Containers:

• Calibrachoa Superbells ‘Dreamsicle’, ‘Blue’, and ‘Tangerine Punch’
• Alyssum ‘Crystal Clear White’ and Lobularia ‘Snow Princess’
• Petunia ‘Famous Blue’ and ‘Famous Purple’

Good Examples of Color for Gardens:

• Rudbeckia ‘Autumn Colors’ and ‘Indian Summer’
• Snapdragon Snapshot ‘Orange’, ‘Yellow’, ‘Sunset’, and Mix
• Argyranthemum ‘Butterfly’

Plectranthus ‘Mona Lavender’

Something Special for the Season:

• Plectranthus ‘Mona Lavender’ (Salvia-like flowers over rounded leaves)
• Petunia ‘Sweetunia Black Satin’ (velvety black-purple)
• Bidens ‘Bee-Happy’ (yellow and orange bicolor)

In Addition:

• Lantana ‘Luscious Citrus Blend’
• Bracteantha ‘Mohave Yellow’
• Petunia Supertunia ‘Bordeaux’ and ‘Black Cherry’
• Angelonia ‘Angelface Blue’
• Bidens ‘Goldilocks Rocks’
• Rudbeckia ‘Toto Rustic’ and ‘Toto Gold’
• Zinnia Profusion ‘Red’, ‘Double Golden’, and ‘Double Fire’

Helichrysum ‘Icicles’

THE FOLIAGE

We mix foliage into autumn production because of its ability to add texture in complementary hues and set the stage. Often used as a component in containers in the filler or spiller category, foliage is used in the same manner in bed design for drapes, sweeps, and masses. A great actor needs a great scene to be memorable, and sometimes the background scenery actually steals the show.

Examples that Grow Vertically:

• Helichrysum ‘Icicles’
• Pennisetum rubrum
• Dusty Miller ‘Silverdust’
• Carex ‘Gold Fountains’

Examples that Trail Out:

• Ipomoea SolarPower ‘Lime’ and ‘Black’
• Muehlenbeckia (Creeping Wirevine)
• Vinca Vine (Variegated)
• Dichondra ‘Silver Falls’
• Hedera ‘Patricia’

Ornamental Corn ‘Field of Dreams’

THE ORNAMENTALS

Specialties of the autumn season, Ornamentals are highly decorative crops sourced from vegetable beds of the past. We have a long-standing interest in this category of décor, so you will find an especially good choice of both major and minor Ornamental crops. Nothing says autumn quite like the Ornamentals, and these crops usually have the ability to keep a garden or container interesting into late fall and early winter.

Ornamental Millet and Corn:

• Millet ‘Jade Princess’
• Millet ‘Purple Baron’
• Ornamental Corn ‘Field of Dreams’

Ornamental Peppers:

• ‘Chilly Chili’
• ‘Black Pearl’
• ‘NuMex Easter’
• ‘Purple Flash’
• ‘Sangria’
• ‘Acapulco Mix’

Ornamental Kale ‘Peacock Red’

Ornamental Cabbage and Kale:

• Kale ‘Scarlet Bor’
• Cabbage Osaka ‘Red’, ‘Pink’, and ‘White’
• Kale ‘Peacock Red’
• Kale Nagoya ‘Red’, ‘Rose’, and ‘White’
• Kale ‘Nero Di Toscana’
• Cabbage ‘Osaka Red’ and ‘Osaka White’

All of these varieties are available in the 1001 tray size (the Tray of 10), a subset of what we sell. This size is especially useful because it breaks down into single purchases at the garden center, but it also can be deployed as a flat for mass plantings. The trays break apart and remix for a line of custom containers, or they can divide into fractions for custom mixes in the field.

If you need a little of this and a little of that, a few Trays of 10 fit that bill very nicely. If you need a lot for big projects, they are very flexible.

Ipomoea ‘SolarPower Black’ and ‘Lime’ at left while ‘SolarTower’ grows upward