October Planting

Fall is a great time to freshen up your containers and clean out the summer annuals. I like to use simple and clean containers without a lot of added adornment. My "go to" favorite for the past few years is a simple black container. Gardenstone Manufacturing out of Canada is a brand that has a great selection of this type of container. My client recently purchased two from Gardenstone. You can see them in the following photos. She purchased the "Aurora" in "Etched Black" (size large).

How do you find the right plants for your Fall containers? By following the saying, "thrillers, fillers and spillers" (oh my!), you cannot go wrong.  A "thriller" in the plant world is defined as the "standout piece".  This should be the tallest in the container and the one you notice first because of its color, texture and shape. I recommend picking the thriller plant first and then adding  the fillers and spillers.  For Fall containers, I recommend an evergreen plant which means it will not not lose its leaves and normally looks good throughout the winter.

A"filler" plant then goes around the thriller to literally fill in around the container and work off the thriller plant. Finally, add the "spiller" which should be a trailing plant.  This is planted in the corners of the container to allow them to spill out the sides working off the thriller and fillers to bring the entire composition together.  

Let me show you how to put this all together.  In the following Gardenstone containers, the thriller is a cone shaped Buxus sempervirens, otherwise know as a boxwood. Then for the fillers, I added white Pansies, Dusty Miller, and Calluna purple, also know as Heather. Finally, we have the spillers -Hedera helix "Teardrop' otherwise know as Ivy. To celebrate October's arrival, I mixed in Cinderella pumpkins in orange, white, and blue-gray. Cinderella pumpkins are officially known as Rouge Vif D' Etampe. Happy Fall planting!