Cool Color

It’s the cool season, and there are still options to add color and interest to your landscape. Let’s take a look at some of my fall favorites. Today I’m at Dogwood Ridge Farms in Poplarville where Barbara and Mike Levy are growing a variety of great cool season landscape plants. A favorite bedding plant that is related to the pansy is the viola. Violas are good choices for both landscape and containers. The Penny Citrus mix is a prolific flower producer. The flowers are displayed above the compact foliage in a way that says “Hey, look at me.” Flower colors include cream, orange, primrose, yellow and yellow frost. I really like the Penny Azure, which is a gorgeous white and bright blue flower with purple streaks. Since moving to south Mississippi, Telstar dianthus has become one of my very favorite cool season plants. There are varieties of colors that include carmine rose, pink, and purple picotee. Picotee describes a flower having a lighter or darker edge. Telstar dianthus will be 8 to 10 inches tall and wide and will tolerate cooler temperatures. The Telstar dianthus is a great partner with either pansy or viola. These pairings can maintain interest from fall through the following spring. For foliage interest in the cool season, consider Pink Chablis spotted dead nettle. Known botanically as Lamium maculatum, Pink Chablis is a low maintenance landscape plant. The leaves are a frothy confection of silver and green with cotton candy pink flowers that bloom into the cool season. This is also a great spiller plant for combination containers. You can’t go wrong with these fall favorites to add color and interest to your cool-season landscape. I’m Gary Bachman for Southern Gardening.