Fall and Winter Color
I get bored with the prevailing choices for Fall and Winter plantings. You can only love so many pansies and mums in your life.
Autumn Tropicals
I think it's time to look to something different to provide the splash of color, the "what is that fragrance?", the "what IS that plant?" that makes us gardeners smile in delight as we introduce someone to a new favorite plant in our gardens.
  Angel Trumpets
One of these favorites is Angel Trumpet (brugmansia), a spendid example of tropical looks in an Arkansas setting. If planted in the ground with adequate sun and water, it gets about 6-feet tall and covered with 6-inch hanging trumpets of delicate colors and scent. Plant it in Spring to give it adequate time to establish, then cut it back and mulch it heavily after frost kill. It will reward you with more blooms than you should rightfully expect.
Another tropical beauty that spices up and autumn garden is White Ginger, or White Ginger Lily (hedychium coronarium).
  White Ginger
Although frost will kill it to the ground, its Zone 7b hardiness ensures that it returns each Spring and grows to nearly 6-feet heights, opening its white butterfly blooms that last as well in a vase as on the plant. Winter Greens
For winter, try adding herbs and hardy vegetables to your beds and pots for visual interest and vitamin-filled edibles: parsley, thyme, salad burnet, bloody savory, mustard, lettuce, spinach, chard, kale, and cole crops like cabbage and broccoli.
Branch out. Enjoy more options. There are so many other choices than mums.
Daringly,
Kathy
P.S. Try violas for tiny spots of color in your pots of winter greens.
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