Having a garden that stays colorful into the late fall isn’t as challenging as you might think. there’s a smaller palette of late-blooming plants to work with, but there’s still a solid group of perennials to select from that bloom their heads off in the fall.

On a recent late summer trip to Seattle, my wife and I stopped off at the Bellevue Botanical Garden in Bellevue, Washington and were awed by the spectacle of bold and beautiful perennial borders.

One of our favorite combinations was also a hummingbird magnet. The nectar-rich, bright red flowers of ‘Lucifer’ crocosmia held center stage over drifts of yellow helenium. While we were there, scores of hummingbirds buzzed in and out, giving this bed an extra dose of color and energy. In Northern gardens, crocosmia corms need to be dug and stored indoors over the winter. It’s reliably hardy outdoors from zones 7-9.

Another late-season planting that caught our eye was a huge mass of golden black-eyed Susans mixed with blocks of sedum just beginning to turn pink. We also could not help but notice how many bees and butterflies flocked to this bed because these perennials also produced plenty of tasty nectar.   

Also notice that this bed, like all the others we saw, was planted in large drifts or clumps to make the biggest impact. Always use more plants of fewer varieties than mixing a bunch of single plants together in a tangled mess.