Fill Patio Pots with Vibrant Plants that Last from Fall into Winter for a Wonderfully Colorful Cool-Season Display

Chrysanthemums bring glorious color to fall containers – but when that first frost hits, the show is quickly over. Far better to plant cold-hardy beauties that will bring color all through fall but carry on looking good into winter. Whether you have patio planters, welcoming containers either side of your front door or hanging baskets, these cold-season plants will flourish while everything else in your garden fades away.

Get your fall containers planted in early September while the weather is still warm enough to encourage strong growth, and all the plants will have the time to develop a good root system. Then, when temperatures start to drop and fall storms move in, you have strong plants that can handle whatever the weather throws at them.

From trailing pansies to ornamental kale, gracefully arching Carex leaves to intensely colored Heuchera foliage and the prettiest little cyclamen blooms, there are plenty of fabulous options to choose from. With a little deadheading, and a sheltered position in prolonged cold snaps, all these plants will shine through winter and get spring off to an early start, too. Choose to fill fall containers with just one variety or mix and match for a textural feast.

1. Pansies

For easy color, pretty pansies are one of the finest cool-season container plants, but be savvy about which varieties you buy if you want blooms that keep on coming as the weather gets colder. While standard pansy varieties flower in fall, they’re not hardy so won’t last for long. Instead, choose winter-flowering pansies that have been bred to survive plummeting temperatures. As long as you plant these early enough in September, they’ll start blooming in fall and continue to spring. Cool Wave pansies, available from Trees (previously Fast Growing Trees) are a brilliant winter-flowering choice with exceptional hardiness and superfast growth to quickly fill a container with cheery blooms from October to May.

Another good choice is Plentifall pansies that flower from October to May. As well as growing upwards to around 8 inches, Plentiful pansies also boast trailing stems so they’ll spill over the edge of baskets and pots. Burpee stocks both the Plentifall Lavender Blue Pansies and the paler blooms of Plentifall Frost Pansies.

2. Ornamental Kale and Cabbage

One of the most unusual, eye-catching plants for autumn containers is ornamental kale or cabbage. These ornamental varieties have been bred for intense color which typically become more intense as temperatures drop. Ornamental kale tends to be a little more frilly and flouncy than cabbage, but both bring a tight rosette of leaves for incredible texture. Crane Pink, known as the cut-flower kale and available from Burpee, has even been bred to grow on 35-inch stems to resemble roses!

Cold-hardy and frost-tolerant, these plants are set to be a huge trend this fall, and make for a showstopper display, whether you choose to fill a planter with one variety or pop just one into a hanging basket.

3. Heuchera

If you want your container to stay looking good from fall into winter, it’s a smart move to use evergreen foliage to bring statement color, rather than relying solely on flowers. Coral bells (Heuchera) are technically semi-evergreen and keep their leaves through winter in milder climates, but varieties with leathery dark leaves tend to retain their colorful foliage better as temperatures fall, so are a good option for colder zones.

It’s a happy fact that darker-toned heuchera do better in sun and lighter, brighter foliage colors prefer shade, so they’re brilliant plants to bring contrast to a container. As well as a range of intense colors from lime green to amber, vibrant purple to almost black, coral bell varieties come in all sizes so pair the cultivar with your container capacity. Varieties that naturally grow in a neat mound, such as Caramel coral bells, available from Plant Addicts, work best in pots. For a smaller container or fall hanging baskets, choose heuchera hybrid heucherella (foamy bells) which is more compact but just as cold-hardy. Fun and Games Capture the Flag, also available from Plant Addicts, is a great choice.

Another option if you’re pushed for space in a hanging basket is to opt for a starter plant of any variety – and Heuchera ‘Wildberry’, with starter plants available from Walmart – is a fabulous deep purple – then move them into a bed or border next spring.

4. Heather

Compact varieties of perennial Scotch heather (Calluna vulgaris) and autumn heather (Erica manipuliflora) are ideal for a fall container as they add texture as well as color and as they’re evergreen, look good all through winter, too. These slow growers need very little care and stand up well to harsh weather. Look for a variety that excels as temperatures fall, such as Beauty Ladies Scarlet Scotch Heather, available from Plant Addicts, whose red hues intensify as winter approaches.

5. Carex

Fully evergreen, sedges are grass-like perennial plants with a wonderfully ornate habit, their blades growing up and over to create an elegant arching effect. They're also one of the most easy-going plants that practically grow themselves. Use carex in the center of containers and pansies will grow up through the slender blades for a professional-looking display, or position them towards the planter edge so the leaves cascade over the rim.

The Evercolor carex series is a super choice for all containers, including hanging baskets, as they’re compact, low maintenance and grow at a manageable pace. They’ve been bred to be highly ornamental and there are all sorts of cultivars to choose from. Plant Addicts stocks a good range, including the harder-to-find Eversheen carex which has has a lime stripe down the center of its green leaves.

6. Hardy Cyclamen

A lovely little add to any fall container or hanging basket is hardy cyclamen. Look for Cyclamen hederifolium (ivy-leaved cyclamen) as this flowers in fall, while Cyclamen coum flowers a little later in winter and early spring, so planting a combination of the two will keep your planter filled with these sweet blooms from September to March.

You’ll find ready-to-flower plants in garden centers at this time of the year, and can often pick them up at grocery, big-box and hardware stores too. Watch that you don’t buy the florist’s cyclamen, Cyclamen persicum, though, as these are houseplants and will quickly die outdoors, so aren't the best plants for fall pots. They’re easy to tell apart: Cyclamen persicum have large, marbled heart-shaped leaves with scalloped or serrated edges; the foliage of Cyclamen coum is heart-shaped or round but with smooth edges, while Cyclamen hederifolium leaves are shaped like ivy.

7. English Ivy

The great thing about English ivy is that it’s happy to grow pretty much anywhere. While it can grow into a big plant, corralling it in a planter or hanging basket will control its vigorous nature and it’ll put all its efforts into throwing out a waterfall of long leafy stems to drape over the container sides.

English ivy is often sold as a houseplant, and these plants raised for a life indoors won’t be as hardy as those destined for garden use. So, make sure you look for garden-bound plants such as English ivy from Garden Goods Direct. For an even prettier effect, Hedera helix ‘Glacier’ is an English ivy cultivar with smaller gray-green with creamy-white, almost silver variegation. Glacier ivy is also available from Garden Goods Direct.

8. Bugleweed

A more unusual but no less fabulous spiller is Ajuga reptans, or bugleweed. Normally used as a groundcover plant, position this near the edge of a planter or hanging basket and its spreading habit means that stems that creep over the rim. But its biggest boast is the light it brings to any container as the leaves have a waxy coating that shimmers even in dappled sunlight. While bugleweed is hardy down to zone 4, it’s a semi-evergreen, only fully retaining its leaves in warmer zones 8-9. It’s a tough cookie, though, and quickly regrows after a blast of cold weather.

There’s a wide range of colored foliage to choose from. Ajuga reptans ‘Chocolate Chip’, available from Garden Goods Direct, is super in a container as it has smaller, narrower foliage than most varieties in a classy chocolate-burgundy shade. More modern varieties boast particularly ornate leaves, such as Feathered Friends Pleasant Pheasant Ajuga, available from Plant Addicts. As well as foliage that takes on appealing copper tones, it’s been bred for variations in leaf shape for added texture.

What Potting Mix to Use for Fall Containers

While plants grow more slowly in fall and winter, you still need to fuel good growth if you want an abundant display in a small volume of soil. Use potting soil designed for containers such as Miracle-Gro Potting Mix, available from Amazon, which already has slow-release fertilizer mixed in. If you’re using a regular potting mix, add a broad-range slow-release granular plant food such as Osmocote Smart-Release Plant Food, available from Walmart, to the soil at the recommended dose.

Ensure your planter has good drainage, and drill extra holes if needs be.

By all means enjoy planters filled with fall flowers that dazzle till the first frost. But by choosing plants that thrive in cooler weather for your fall containers, too, you’ll enjoy a display that lasts well beyond into winter. Using vibrant foliage such as heuchera as well as enthusiastic bloomers like pansies for color, adding texture with heather and the frilly leaves of ornamental kale, and forming interesting shapes with the spilling stems of English ivy or bugleweed, you’ll create containers that will still be looking good as the holiday season comes around, for no more effort than potting up those chrysanthemums.