9 Ways to Refresh Your Summer Container Gardens for Fall

Transition potted displays from summer to fall with long-lasting foliage, dramatic grasses and standout blooms

Lauren Dunec Hoang September 9, 2022

Houzz Editor; landscape designer and former garden editor for Sunset Magazine and in-house designer for Sunset's Editorial Test Garden. Her garden designs have been featured in the Sunset Western Garden Book of Landscaping, Sunset Western Garden Book of Easy-Care Plantings (cover), Inhabitat, and POPSUGAR.

Houzz Editor; landscape designer and former garden editor for Sunset Magazine and... More

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There’s no need to completely rework your summer containers to give them fall flair. Instead, check out these nine ideas for updating existing container gardens (or, if you’re inspired, potting up new ones), including one plant to add for instant drama, and a zero-effort, lazy-gardener’s trick for covering a bare spot.

Glenna Partridge Garden Design

1. Add Bold Foliage Plants

Swap tired warm-season flowers for richly colored foliage plants, leaving mature evergreens and long-lasting perennials in place. For example, this sizzling container by Glenna Partridge Garden Design in Vancouver, British Columbia, relies on a mature New Zealand flax (Phormium sp.) to add height to the design, with brightly colored foliage plants providing seasonal interest.

Here, wine-red coleus, golden Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa macra) and zingy lime-green ornamental sweet potato vine (Ipomoea batatas) create a dramatic display. Although the coleus and sweet potato vine are not winter-hardy, they could be traded for coral bells or heather moving into the holidays.

Westover Landscape Design

2. Tuck in Cool-Season Flowers

After removing summer annuals past their prime, fill in the gaps with cool-season bloomers in fall colors. Although they may look tender and delicate, pansies are actually some of the most cold-tolerant annual flowers. When planted now while soils are warm, they’ll bloom from fall to spring. Don’t wait too long, though — pansies planted late, in soils with temperatures below 45 degrees Fahrenheit (7.2 degrees Celsius), tend to have stunted growth and fewer flowers.

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Westover Landscape Design

For a rich autumn color palette, choose pansies in vibrant hues like orange, gold, red and deep purple or bicolored combinations, avoiding pastel pinks, blues and pale yellows. If you can find them, try very dark purple to velvety black blooms like ‘Black King’ or ‘Black Beauty’. Combine them with coral bells (Heuchera spp.), another cool-season favorite, for a long-lasting display.

Michelle Jacoby, Changing Spaces

3. Plant an Ornamental Grass for Instant Drama

To give some serious pizazz to existing container gardens by adding just one plant, reach for purple fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum ‘Rubrum’), as shown in this design by Michelle Jacoby, Changing Spaces.

The dramatic ornamental grass can reach 3 to 5 feet tall and 2 to 4 feet wide (although usually smaller in containers) with a vase-like shape topped with fuzzy purple seed heads. Although often grown as an annual in colder climates, it will continue to look striking throughout fall.

Note: ‘Rubrum’ does not reseed as other Pennisetums do, making it a good variety to plant in the home garden.

Olander Garden Design

4. Play up Texture

Consider adding one or more textural ingredients like plants with berries, twiggy branches, grassy leaves or broad foliage. This fall-themed trio by Olander Garden Design in Seattle is a textural feast with feathery grasses, the ruffled bronze and gold leaves of coral bells (Heuchera spp.), twiggy heavenly bamboo (Nandina domestica), small-leaved heather and dark hypericum berries (Hypericum spp.)

Even easier: Add texture without planting by sticking dried curly willow branches or ornamental seedpods from floral displays into the pot.

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Olander Garden Design

5. Pop in Late-Blooming Perennials

Nurseries are packed this time of year with late-summer and fall-blooming perennials. Just adding a few coneflowers (Echinacea spp.), black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) or heirloom chrysanthemums can transform existing container displays. The flowers will add color through fall and come back in spring for another bloom period.

Le jardinet

6. Incorporate Dark Foliage

Deepen existing container designs with the addition of one or more cool-tolerant, dark-leaved plants. In this design by Le jardinet, amethyst-colored ‘Spellbound’ coral bells (Heuchera ‘Spellbound’) and Ruby Glow spurge (Euphorbia amygdaloides ‘Waleuphglo’) add dramatic contrast to the golden orange leaves and red stems of the dwarf vine maple tree (Acer circinatum ‘Little Gem’).

Glenna Partridge Garden Design

7. Cover a Bare Patch With a Pumpkin

This is a gardener’s hack, if we’ve ever seen one. If you’ve pulled out some tired-looking summer annuals but don’t have the time to hunt down a replacement plant, plunk a pumpkin down to cover the bare spot. Go for a classic deep orange pumpkin for a bright hit of color or pick out a knobby, fairytale pumpkin in an interesting shape. In this fall container, designer Glenna Partridge also tucked in a few cut stems of preserved Chinese lanterns (Physalis alkekengi), available from florists, for added whimsy.

Kenneth Philp Landscape Architects

8. Reshuffle Your Container Layout

Sometimes all containers need is a regrouping, rather than a replanting, for a fresh perspective. Take stock of all your potted plants and see which ones could work together as part of a fall container vignette. Do you have ornamental grasses in one pot that complement the leaf tones of a plant in a container across the yard? If the light requirements of the plants match, move the containers together as a combination.

Adolfo Harrison Gardens

9. Change the Underplanting

Update the look of containers with shrubs, small trees or mature vines without any major repotting by changing any low-growing plants beneath them. For example, take a look at the pair of potted grapevines framing the gate on this London terrace by Adolfo Harrison Gardens.

Without repotting the grapevines, you could achieve seasonal change by replacing the underplanting. Now the pots are planted with copper-leaved coral bells (Heuchera sp.), which work perfectly for fall — and will look even better once the grape leaves begin to turn color — and through winter. In spring, the coral bells could be traded for pastel pansies or white nemesia for a fresh new look.