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A Curated List of Fall Flowering Plants for Every Garden

Fall flowering plants are a nice addition to any garden, with blooms providing a colorful autumn show when other plants are starting to die off. These plants are hardy enough to withstand colder temperatures, unlike spring or summer plants.

Keep reading for a curated list of fall flowering plants to brighten up your garden.

Fall Flowering Plants

Aster

Asters are gorgeous, daisy-like flowers that are excellent for helping you transition your garden from the summer to fall without any trouble. These blooms can be found in a range of colors, including purple, blue, white, and pink, so they are sure to liven up your garden.

These perennial fall-flowering plants can grow up to six feet tall and will likely return the following year. They don’t require very much in the way of maintenance, and they attract many helpful pollinators.

Asters should be planted in full sun in USDA hardiness zones three through eight.

Snapdragon

Snapdragons are beautiful fall flowering plants that produce fragrant flowers in a variety of shades of pink, yellow, orange, purple, and red. These flowers may be found with two puffed-like or with fringed or ruffled blooms.

These plants thrive in cooler temperatures and tend to bloom weeks before other flowers, so they’re a great way to add some early color to your garden. If you happen to live in a place with mild winters, you may even see some blooms throughout the winter.

Typically, they bloom the best in a sunny location, but they can also tolerate partial shade. Snapdragons will stop growing completely once temperatures begin to warm up for spring.

Dahlia

USA, Oregon, Canby, Swam Island Dahlias, Dahlia flower garden in full color

Dahlias are fantastic fall flowering plants to brighten up your flower beds! These beautiful flowers can be found in many different sizes, from tiny buttons and balls to giant dinner plate-sized flowers. Blooms vary in color from lavender, white, pink, orange, and red.

Since these flowers are perennials, they should live more than two years as long as you make sure the heavier blooms have a strong support system. Dahlias do flower and bloom throughout the summer season, but generally, the warm days and cool nights of fall promote a greater number of blooms with more vivid colors.

Shrub Rose

Shrub roses, also called landscape roses, are hardy and reliable fall flowering plants that will brighten up your flower beds.

These roses bloom all season long, typically, with some varieties getting an especially beautiful flush of flowers in early to mid-fall. They are easy to grow in a wide range of climates. Depending on the variety, shrub roses can bloom through fall and can be single or double, resembling old roses with lots of petals.

The color of these roses ranges from solid colors to multi-colored, with the shades of color blending together or appearing as stripes on the petals. They can also be found in either bold, vivid colors or more muted pastel colors.

Shrub roses tend to be very fragrant and range in colors from deep purple, pink, yellow, white, and orange.

Burning Bush

Burning bush is a fall flowering plant that turns brilliant stark red and has long been valued for its vivid fall colors. If you’re looking to add a burst of crimson color to your flower beds this fall, learning to grow the burning bush is a fantastic idea.

This bush is best shown off in borders, beds, and containers thanks to its natural open form. Plant this bush for fall flowering for a bold, fiery, scarlet hue throughout the autumn season. You can use it as a specimen plant or as a hedge or privacy screen. The low-maintenance bush has a visual interest that extends long after fall.

Pansies

mixed colors of pansies in garden

Pansies are colorful and resilient fall flowering plants that bloom in the late summer for peak growth in the fall and winter. These plants are ideal for all gardens, offering a colorful display for up to six months.

Plant these versatile blooms in any part of your garden or landscape, adding a mass of mixed-colored pansies to further brighten your garden during the autumn season. These vivid flowers bring a nice splash of color to the landscape during the cold, dreary months.

Chrysanthemums

Chrysanthemums, also known simply as mums, are gorgeous fall flowering plants that come in every color of the rainbow and are typically considered perennials. Orange and red mums are very popular flowers for fall since these colors blend well with other fall colors.

These flowers are easy to grow and work well in either pots or garden beds. They are pest and disease-resistant and come in various different forms with either big, luscious flowers or daisy-like blooms.

Mums make excellent flowers for fall since they need cold temperatures to initiate the flowering process, and you can leave them in place all winter long.

Helenium

Helenium, also known as sneezeweed, is a brilliant fall-flowering plant classified as a perennial. This plant attracts a multitude of butterflies with its blooms that generally produce abundant velvet-textured flowers in dense terminal clusters over time.

The blooms of these flowering plants are around one to two inches wide and generally have composite or daisy-like patterns with ray florets surrounding the central disk flowers. These florets are short and wedge-shaped, with notched ends forming lobes at the tip of the bloom.

These flowers range in color from pale or bright yellow and golden, warm orange tones to coppery brown and deep red hues. Sometimes, you’ll find heleniums with two or more colors that blend together for a washed or striped effect with bands of color.

Autumn Crocus

Autumn Crocus, also known as meadow saffron, are fragrant fall flowering plants with a slow rate of growth, taking years to germinate and bloom sometimes.

These flowers begin blooming in early fall, but they won’t have leaves when they bloom. The plant also goes dormant until fall, when you see a six to ten-inch stem emerging from the ground with a star-shaped bloom.

As beautiful as these light pinkish-purple flowers are when they’re blooming, they are toxic to humans and animals alike.

Marigold

marigold sparky mix

The bold and bright colors of marigolds make for fantastic fall flowering plants since they will bloom until the first frost of the season. These flowers make for a brilliant fall display, with cheery pom-pom or daisy-like flowers ranging from yellowish-gold to reddish-mahogany hues.

The size of these flowers depends on the variety. These blooms may range anywhere from the size of a quarter to the size of a tennis ball and will cover the entire plant. One of the best parts of planting marigolds in your garden this fall is the reduced threat of spider mites.

Autumn Fern

Autumn ferns are a bold and gorgeous choice for woodland gardens and borders for your garden. These fall flowering plants are stunning dwarf ferns with fronds that emerge in a coppery red color, then they mature to a deep green shade.

These plants spread by underground stems and are considered an herbaceous perennial. They don’t spread very much, though, so they are suitable for small spaces, and they make great ground cover.

Flowering Kale/Cabbage

Flowering kale and cabbage, also known as ornamental cabbage and kale, are fall-flowering plants that come in rich shades of purple, green, rose, and cream. These plants are an excellent choice for fall gardens, especially if you place them in front of beds or as borders around other plants.

These plants thrive in cool weather, with the colors becoming richer and more vivid as temperatures drop. They are in the same family as cauliflower and broccoli, so they are edible and beautiful.

Flowering kale grows with ruffled leaves drenched in purples, pinks, and reds and is an easy addition to gardens and flower beds. These decorative plants are very easy to grow during the fall season.


Wrapping Up Fall Flowering Plants

Whether you’re looking for vivid flowers to add a splash of color for fall or other fall flowering plants to help line your garden, we hope this guide has been helpful on which flowers you should plant this fall!

Check out the flowers section of our website for more information on different types of flowers and how to grow them.