Which flowers can be planted in October?

The best flowers to plant in October fall into two groups. You can put hardy perennials, pansies, and mums in for color you see right now. You can also drop spring bulbs like tulips and daffodils in the ground, and those wait months to bloom. October does double duty, which is why it stays busy in the garden.

Most gardeners think the season ends when summer flowers fade. It does not. October planting sets you up for both fall and spring at the same time. One trip outside now covers two seasons of blooms, and that makes the month one of the most useful on the whole calendar.

October planting works because of a simple split. The air turns cool, but the soil stays warm from a long summer. Cool air keeps the leaves and stems from getting stressed, so the plant is not fighting heat. Warm soil, often still in the 50s and 60s Fahrenheit, lets roots dig in fast. Roots keep growing even after the leaves stop, so your plants settle in before the first hard freeze. That head start is why a fall-planted perennial often beats a spring-planted one the next year.

Spring bulbs need this timing for a different reason. A tulip or daffodil bulb has to sit through a cold winter to bloom at all. That cold stretch, usually 12 to 16 weeks below 45 degrees, is what triggers the flower waiting inside the bulb. Skip the fall window and you skip the spring show, since bulbs planted late will not get enough chill to perform. This is also why warm regions sometimes have to chill bulbs in a fridge before they go in the ground.

Hardy perennials like asters and sedum are the backbone of fall flowers to plant. Asters throw off purple and pink right when most beds look tired in late September and October. Sedum holds its shape through cold snaps, and its flat flower heads feed late bees when little else is open. Both root through the cool weeks and come back stronger the next year. Plant them in a spot with good drainage, since soggy winter soil is what kills more perennials than the cold itself.

For color you can see this week, reach for pansies and violas. These cool-season flowers laugh at light frost and keep blooming when warm-weather annuals quit. In milder zones they hold on through winter and surge again in spring. Hardy mums belong in this group too. They fill beds and pots with rich fall tones in gold, rust, and deep red. The hardy garden kind can survive winter if you plant them early enough. The cheap florist mums you grab at the store are usually one-season throwaways.

Timing is the one rule that makes or breaks your fall flowers to plant. Get hardy perennials in the ground at least a month before the ground freezes. That month gives roots time to grab hold so the plant does not heave out of cold soil. In most northern zones that means finishing perennial planting by mid-October.

Spring bulbs play by an easier clock. You can plant tulips and daffodils right up until the ground turns too hard to dig, often into late November. Plant them about three times as deep as the bulb is tall, with the pointed end facing up. A six-inch tulip hole and a four-inch crocus hole are close enough for most yards. Then forget them until spring, when they push up and pay off all that fall work with the first real color of the year.

So which flowers can you plant in October? Hardy asters, sedum, pansies, violas, and garden mums for color now, plus tulips and daffodils for the spring ahead. Get the perennials in by mid-October, drop the bulbs in any time before the ground freezes, and water everything once. That is the whole job, and it carries your garden through two seasons.

Read the full article: Fall Blooming Plants: A Complete Guide