Fall Layered Garden Plan, full sun (zones 5-8)

Fall doesn’t have to mean the end of your garden’s beauty. In this video, I’ll show you how to design a stunning fall layered garden bed using my plant layering formula — the same system I teach in my Design Your 4-Season Garden course.

👉️Design Your 4-Season Garden Course: https://www.prettypurpledoor.com/course

You’ll see how I combine plants like Inkberry Holly, Goldenrod, Sweetspire, New England Aster, Wormwood, and Switchgrass. Each plant plays a role in creating layers of color, texture and seasonal interest, so your garden can shine well into autumn.

Want to learn my full system for designing beds that look amazing in every season? Join me inside my Design Your 4-Season Garden course: https://www.prettypurpledoor.com/course

👉️Arrange Plants in Garden Beds: https://youtu.be/jRQLJANXvUU?si=5-y4RqRtMXyRInuy

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👋Hi! I’m Amy and over at PrettyPurpleDoor.com, I help home gardeners design landscapes that are uniquely you.

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Most people think that fall is the end of the gardening season, but it really doesn’t have to be that way. With a layer design system, you can combine plants to create texture and interest well into the fall. My name is Amy, and over at prettypurp.com, I help home gardeners design landscapes that are uniquely you. And today, I wanted to try something a little bit different. Instead of just a plant list, I’m going to give you an actual vignette of different plants that I would use for a layered fall garden. So, as a designer, I use formulas all the time, and I’m going to be using my plant layering formula in this video. And let’s just get right into that so I can show you how all of the pieces really work together. Here we have a fall layered garden design I put together. This has yellow, orange, and purple colors. It will perform well in full sun, well- draining soil, average moisture, and this is suitable for zones 5 through 8. First up, we have Inkberry Holly Shamrock. And I chose this because of the winter interest for this plant. This is an evergreen shrub. grows in zones four through nine and it gets about 3 to four feet high and wide. It’s a dense rounded evergreen with glossy dark green foliage and small black berries in the fall. Inkberry offers year- round structure in the garden while supporting the rich, warm hues of fall foliage around it. It’s ideal for full sun to part sun and adds a clean evergreen base for seasonal plantings. I’ve tried to plant this in part sun and even shade and it just doesn’t hold its foliage at all. So, this evergreen, while a lot of people say will replace boxwoods, I find that it doesn’t really do as well in the part shade. So, definitely make sure you give this enough sun. Next up, we have fireworks golden rod. I chose this for its long lasting color in the fall. It grows in zones 4 through 9. This golden rod variety produces arching sprays of bright yellow flowers from late summer into fall. They resemble bursts of fireworks. It’s fine textured foliage and upright habit about 2 to 3 feet tall. Add energy and movement. And those golden blooms, you just can’t beat those. It’s pollinator friendly. It’s native to the eastern US. Non-invasive. And this particular variety of golden rod, I have it in my own garden. It’s not aggressively spreading like the straight species would be. The support plant I chose for this particular garden plan is called Little Henry Sweetspire. It’s a dwarf shrub. It’s a supporting color in this combination growing in zones 5 through 9. This is a compact native shrub that delivers white bottle brush blooms in early summer. So, it’s even got some summer interest even though we’re focusing on fall here. And then it absolutely steals the show in the fall with vibrant scarlet red foliage. Its size, which is only about 2 to three feet tall and wide and lowmaintenance nature, make it a perfect layer in front of taller plants. The next plant I chose for this combination is purple dome New England aster. I chose it for a contrasting pop of color. This purple accent with the yellows and the oranges I thought would be really nice. This is a compact native perennial delivering a burst of rich violet plum daisyike flowers in early to midfall. It stands 18 to 24 in tall. This is a dome-shaped plant. It maintains a really tidy mound, offering structure and late season color that contrasts beautifully with golden hues and red foliage in the fall garden. It’s loved by butterflies and pollinators. It thrives in full sun and well- drained soil, and its saturated purple blooms are kind of a cool color tone that are really interesting when paired with the warmer reds and golds that you typically see in fall. So, I think this is a really interesting contrast. Next, I chose silver mound wormwood. This is a ground cover or a low growing plant with a silver accent. This grows in zones three through eight. I love this plant. It’s so unique and so interesting. It’s got really finely textured silver leaves. It almost looks like a fluffy cloud in the landscape. Very low growing. It brings a soft contrast and a cooling silvery blue accent to the base of your design here. It thrives in full sun with well- drained soil. It’s drought tolerant once established and it holds its mounted form throughout the season. Its foliage offers this soft feathery texture that beautifully offsets the bold colors of any fall foliage. Adding that silvery tone to it will really just make everything else pop. Just a note here, wormwood has a reputation for spreading in dry and lean soils, but silver mound is actually a really well-behaved plant in average garden settings and adds a gorgeous color contrast. But again, do your own research before you plant anything. I don’t know where you live. I don’t know the conditions that you have. So you have to do that level of regional research yourself before you plant anything. Next I chose Shenandoa switchgrass and this is a vertical accent in this design. It grows in zones 4 through 9. This is a compact native grass with an upright form and fine textured blades that turn a reddish purple color in late summer and they deepen to burgundy in the fall. It’s got airy seed heads and rich fall coloring that contributes soft motion and texture to layered borders. So, you’re getting that movement and also that sound in your garden when you add ornamental grasses. I think they’re absolutely stunning as well, especially in the fall. This grass thrives in full sun and well- drained soil and maintains its shape into winter, adding structure and visual interest to an offseason garden like the one we’re creating today. So, here we have each plant in this autumn combination. They’re all contributing to a richly layered tapestry of both foliage and form. The evergreen ink berry provided a dark green anchor through all the seasons. Golden rod’s arching blooms bring brightness and energy as the season shifts. Little Henry adds this rich scarlet foliage in the middle of the border, harmonizing with all the other warm fall tones you may have in your garden. While purple dome aster introduces a vibrant contrast in color with the purple blooms. The Shenondoa switchgrass adds color and movement and that vertical interest to your garden. And wormwood will carpet the ground in that soft silvery foliage that will really contrast well with everything here. Together, all of these plants celebrate the textures and the transitions and the bold colors of autumn. There’s so much that you can do in your garden in the fall. And I think it’s a really overlooked time for gardening. So, if you’re feeling like the season is cut short right after summer, think about adding some of these plants into your garden so you can enjoy it for even longer each year. So, that’s my example of a fall layered garden design. It’s not just about one single plant. It’s about how all of the different plants work together to create structure and texture and seasonal interest in a garden bed. I know that this isn’t going to work for every single person that’s watching today, so just use this as a guide and inspiration for your own garden design. And if you liked this video, you’re gonna absolutely love my design your four-season garden course. In this course, I show you step by step the system that I use to put together all of these plants, except we don’t just do it for fall. We do it for every single season from spring all the way through winter. I’m going to put a link to that course in the description, and I’d love to help you design your beautiful four-season garden. And if you want to keep learning right now on this channel, you can check out my video about how to arrange plants in garden beds. I’m going to leave a link to that right here. and I’ll see you over in the next video. [Music] [Music]