Fall Flowers For Hanging Baskets

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This post contains affiliate links.

Fall is a great time to go wild and experiment with combinations of plants and ignore the plant tags as far as spacing and eventual plant heights go.  This is the one time of year you can almost treat your hanging baskets as a floral arrangement, and pot up as you want the end product to look like.

Great fall flowers for your baskets are:

• Verbena
• Celosia
• Gomphrena
• Snapdragons
• Cascading pansies
• Marigolds
• Angelonia Sedum or Lemon Coral Sedum
• Oxalis

Fill your baskets with plants, there will be very little, if any growth in the cooler months, so no need to start with elbow room.  Plant your pots up full and abundant!

Verbena

Verbena is a wonderful, full-sun, cascading, semi-hardy perennial that can tolerate a light frost and continue to look great!  It will keep looking good for a long time when many water-filled topicals like impatiens have long since given up and collapsed; frozen cells bursting and, losing their structure.
If your containers have verbena in them for the summer, give them a good trim in August to get them refreshed and looking their best for the fall.  This will encourage brand-new growth closer to the base, and prevent them from looking leggy and tired for your fall baskets. All verbena asks of you is a good 4-6 hours of sun a day, fertile, well-drained potting soil, and regular watering.  

Celosia

Celosia is a great full sun, taller, later in the year blooming annual.  You can choose from a variety of hot colors from reds and oranges to pinks and yellows.  There is also a surprising difference in heights, and in actual flower shapes. One type of celocia looks like flames, another like feathers or grass tassel shapes.  Another has a very distinct and unusual shape of a chicken’s comb. Not so much a rooster, of the name cock’s comb, but actually a young male or a large hen’s, comb. This is flower is sure to get noticed and questions asked of “Where did you ever find it?’

Gomphrena

Gomphrena is another lesser-known, underused annual with wonderfully unique blossoms.  These are shaped like little balls the size of pocket-change. Dime to quarter-sized blooms, depending on the variety and the vigor of the plants.  Wonderfully unusual blossoms that remind me of Dr. Seuss’, ‘Horton Hears a Who’ books. These will also be wonderful supporting members for many of your fall containers, bravely marching on, and shaking off a light frost.  Comes in pinks, magentas, red and white.

Cascading Pansies

Cascading pansies – most people are familiar with pansies, but cascading pansies are not leggy standard pansies, they are in a category by themselves.   Viola x wittrockiana variety ‘Coolwave’ The flower’s size is between a viola and a pansy, and they have a growth habit that spills over the sides of your hanging basket. Most commonly found in purple, yellow, and white.

Lobelia

Lobelia is a beautiful cascading flowering gem that prefers the cool weather. Found mostly in blue shades, but also in white. Lobelia prefers part sun but can tolerate almost full sun in the fall, and in cooler temperature locations.

Marigolds

Marigolds are triggered to start blooming again by the shorter days.  The colors are perfect for fall baskets, orange, yellows, and reds.

Angelonia Sedum or Lemon Coral Sedum

Golden Sedums add great golden color that hangs over the sides of your baskets and stands up to colder weather, continuing to look fabulous!  Full-on sun brings out the best color.

Oxalis

Oxalis prefers shadier locations.  Sun either in the morning, or afternoon, not both. Foliage is reminiscent of large four-leaf clovers  Oxalis usually blooms in the spring, but it is not unheard of to find blooming later when started later in the year specifically for fall bloom.  However with fantastic foliage like this, who needs to blooms! Fabulous purples and green and purple combinations.

Use a well-drained potting soil with regular watering for your best baskets.  This may mean once or even twice a day in hot climates. Do not think that soil that stays soggy will counteract the need to water as often, it doesn’t work that way. Please check out my post on watering for the details on why.  Baskets are gorgeous and dramatic but will look awful if you let them dry out. Even once for most. The good news is, fall is bringing cooler temperatures, and that means your baskets won’t be water hogs as much. But still, check them every day.  You will be rewarded by long-lasting, stunning baskets when others have already tossed in the towel for the winter.

Foliage

YES, foliage.  Who needs flowers when you have such fantastic foliage?  Many flowers are more tender to frost and slower to keep coming with the cooler weather.  Fantastic foliage RULES in fall.

Purple fountain grass

Coleus

Flowering cabbage

Variegated sedge

Liriope

Heuchera

Ivy

Evergreens

Variegated Iris

Related questions:
How do I protect fall flowers from frost?
Most flowers are sensitive to frost,  however, if you protect them, they can continue to flower for you for several more weeks.  Protecting them when temperatures threaten to dip to 35 degrees F, or 2 degrees C, is a good idea because temperatures will vary by a few degrees, even within your yard.  If you do cover, and you do not need to, then no harm, no foul. On the other hand, if you do not cover and it is colder than you expected, the blooms are gone, and may not develop more buds this season.  Also, the temperatures where a hanging basket is hanging can easily be several degrees lower than on the ground, just bringing your baskets down, and setting them on the ground on a cool night is often enough for the ‘will it frost, or won’t it frost’ nights.
Protect with fabric.  Not plastic. Not a tarp. Fabric.  This can be a dedicated lightweight, fast-drying frost cloth, or just a sheet.  It is best if the fabric drapes all the way to the ground, and has support to hold it just above the foliage, but simply draping it on might do in a pinch.  Weigh down the edges, because just because the wind is not blowing now, doesn’t mean it won’t before morning, and remove your carefully placed protection.

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BesideTheFrontDoor - Smallgrove is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. We also participate in other affiliate programs which compensate us for referring traffic.