Flowers in the fall? You bet!
While many trees and shrubs are showing off their leafy autumn wardrobes, a select few are gearing up to pump out late-in-the-season blooms for you to enjoy! Often their flowers are combined with fiery foliage that is more typical for the season, giving you a double dose of beauty!
Here are the top five shrubs that not only bloom in the spring but turn around and rebloom again in the autumn months. Especially now that the summer’s heat has at last begun to release its grip on the landscape!
Top 5 Fall Reblooming Flowering Shrubs!
More flowers for your enjoyment, for your nose, for your bouquets, more nectar for pollinators and Hummingbirds, and a second show for the whole neighborhood to enjoy! Check out these flowering ornamental shrubs that put on a flowering show in the autumn. Just in time for you to enjoy back to school, bonfires, cooler evenings around the fire pit, and relaxation as the season winds down!
5. Weigela Shrubs
Many fall-reblooming Weigela bushes have lovely blooms in early summer and then Weigela will rebloom nicely on new growth in late summer into fall. You will love seeing the reappearance of the hummingbird-friendly trumpet-shaped blossoms! Especially the Sonic Bloom® Weigela, try one of these fantastic space-saving varieties!
- Tuxedo™
- Ghost™
- Maroon Swoon®
- Sonic Bloom® Pearl
These incredibly easy-to-grow flowering shrubs are not only gorgeous spring bloomers, but their repeat-flowering nature and low-maintenance form almost make them the perfect shrubs! Full sun is best and almost any well-drained soil. Prune if you must after the first round of blooms, but these do best with renewal pruning every 3-5 years so you don’t miss any flowers.
4. Reblooming Hydrangea
While most Hydrangea bloom in the summer months and their showy bracts remain colorful all summer and ornamentally dry on the shrub in the autumn, reblooming Hydrangea will put on a show by flowering on both new and old wood! Try reblooming Hydrangeas like one of these gorgeous varieties with a double dose of flowers!
-
Let's Dance® Hydrangeas like Blue Jangles® and Rhythmic Blue™
- Tuff Stuff™ Hydrangeas
- Let's Dance® Hydrangeas
- Endless Summer® Reblooming Hydrangeas
These plants do best in full sun and partial shade (especially afternoon shade) and well-drained, enriched, mulched garden beds. Early blooms are born on old wood, and rebloom comes later in the summer on new growth from the base. Best pruned in spring as they come out of dormancy.
3. Reblooming Lilacs
Who doesn’t love the scent of Lilacs? And who wouldn’t want a double dose of those incredibly scented blooms? Well, you’re in luck with the repeat-blooming Bloomerang® Lilacs! These have a lovely fragrant display in spring, you can deadhead or lightly prune right after the first bloom and new growth will produce a new set of flowers later summer into fall.
- Bloomerang® Dark Purple Lilac
- Bloomerang® Dark Purple Lilac Tree Form
- Bloomerang® Pink Perfume Lilac
Very cold hardy and easy to grow, provide a full sun location for the best flowering display and either prune immediately after that first flowering in spring or perform renewal pruning each year while the shrub is dormant to decrease the overall size and increase vigor without losing out on a single bloom!
2. Bloom-A-Thon® Azalea and Encore® Azalea
Reblooming Azaleas have not just one spring bloom, but a summer and fall rebloom as well! While the display is not quite like the spring bloom, the subsequent flowering shows are never ones you’d want to miss (and your pollinators and migrating hummingbirds won’t miss it either!)
- Encore® Autumn Twist® Azalea
- Encore® Autumn Royalty® Azalea
- Encore® Autumn Embers® Azalea
- Bloom-A-Thon® Lavender
- Bloom-A-Thon® Hot Pink
- Bloom-A-Thon® Pink Double
Encore® Azaleas do great in full sun in cooler climates and appreciate afternoon shade in warmer growing zones. Loving an enriched, well-drained location with plenty of aeration for their roots, these Azaleas can bloom in spring, summer, and fall. Appreciating a main pruning immediately after the first flowering and renewal pruning to remove older stems that are less productive.
1. Reblooming Rose Shrubs & Groundcover Roses
The fantastic Knock Out® Shrub and Drift® Groundcover series of Roses are not only easy to grow, but these ornamentals pump out wave after wave of bloom all summer and fall. Often continuing until frost! Available in a dizzying array of colors to choose from, you’ll enjoy Rose Hips from a few varieties of Shrub Roses as well as flowers for pollinators right until frost!
- Red Double Knock Out® Rose
- Coral Knock Out® Rose
- Pink Double Knock Out® Rose Tree
- Coral Drift® Groundcover Rose
- Apricot Drift® Rose
- Popcorn Drift® Rose
Both shrub and groundcover Roses do best with frequent deadheading throughout the season to remove spent blooms and encourage branching that will be full of new buds! Plant in full sun locations, receiving at least 6 hours of sunlight a day.
Ride the Second Wave!
Enjoy your garden until the bitter last moments before a frost with plants that give you their all! Mix in some fall-blooming Bluebeard shrubs, and the ornamental purple-berried Beautyberry bush, with some vibrantly fruitful Viburnums with your fall-reblooming shrubs, and you’ll create a landscape that keeps your eyes darting from one colorful shrub to the next!
Nature Hills is happy to help you squeeze every last drop of enjoyment from your landscape's beauty with quality plants delivered to your doorstep at the proper fall planting time for your growing zone!
Happy Planting!
