Filling Fall Foliage

Let’s be practical. Once fall arrives those summer blooming annuals are past their prime and so are your pots of petunias and baskets of summer flowers. Chose these shrubs for your tubs and you’ll enjoy a second spring with fresh fall foliage every autumn.

Orange rocket barberry

This new barberry has taken off in popularity with supersonic speed. A narrow, upright growth habit means it always looks neat and tidy and all spring and summer the orange and green foliage adds sparks of color, but once summer ends the real fireworks begin. Fall is when orange rocket explodes with fiery foliage. Plant this barberry in a bright yellow container for a contemporary take on garden design or go more traditional and use a large clay or terra cotta pot to showcase the orange, red and yellow leaves. Set a container of orange rocket barberry near your Japanese maples or other trees that turn color in the autumn and you’ll be creating an autumn theme garden.

Nandina Heavenly Bamboo

All the new varieties of nandina make great shrubs for tubs and this shade tolerant shrub is evergreen in mild winter climates. For purple foliage color look for Nandina ‘Plum Passion’ or for more traditional fall colors Nandina ‘Sienna Sunrise’ will warm up a porch or patio with colorful new spring growth in shades of red and then more red highlights that appear in the fall. This Nandina grows slowly so adapts well to a container.

Makes Good Scents

Great gardens have sweet scents so why not pot up a fragrant shrub and place it where you’ll be able to enjoy the fragrance easily? A fragrant container near the front door will delight your guests and fragrant shrubs on the patio will add aroma therapy to your outdoor living space.

Daphne ‘Eternal Fragance’

Daphne has a reputation as being difficult to grow but the root of most daphne difficulties is poor drainage. Grow daphne in a container with good drainage and in a light weight potting soil and it is happy for years and will reward you with long lasting fragrant blooms. This evergreen daphne has small white flowers that don’t make a big splash with color but hold on to your socks because the sweet scent will knock them off your feet. Like most white blooming flowers this shrub releases a stronger scent once the sun goes down. Try placing a daphne in bloom right outside a bedroom and then open the windows to the sweet night air.

Sweet Box Sarcococca rustifolia

Got shade? This evergreen shrub thrives where the sun don’t shine so you’ve found a shrub that can grow in the darkness of a covered porch or patio. The small white blooms appear in very early spring and have a strong vanilla scent. I grew a sweet box near my front door and one guest thought I was baking cookies. Sweet Box comes in a dwarf form that would work in a smaller pot as well. It is called Himalayan Sarcococca hookeriana var. humilis and this more compact evergreen would do well in smaller containers or even a window box on the north or shaded side of a house.