7 Easy Ways to Give Your Garden Planters a Fall Glow-Up

After a long, hot summer, we’re all in need of a little refresh—including patio planters. As you rejuvenate routines and add fall flavors to your meal prep, give your container gardens a seasonal makeover with some new color and interest. These easy ideas take just a few minutes, so you can squeeze them in between football games and trips to the orchard.

1. Give Plants a Trim

A fall refresh in the container garden begins with a trim. Cut back stems that are long and lanky both to improve their appearance and to encourage fresh growth and possibly more flowers. When you cut back plants like angelonia, salvia, and lobelia in late summer, they might reward you with a fall flower show. Coaxing summer-flowering annuals to flower in fall is hit and miss as nutrient availability is dwindling and hours of daylight are decreasing. Treat reblooming summer annuals as a pleasant surprise in fall.

2. Swap in Fall Flowers

After trimming back wayward plants that still have some life in them, revamp your container with annuals that thrive in autumn. These cool-weather-loving plants bloom through the temperature swings that are common in fall and continue to flower even as the days grow shorter.

Pansies and garden mums are top of the list for adding fall flower power. Heather Ebl of Ball Horticultural Company recommends Top Wave Pansy. “This pansy has enormous blossoms and will pop its ‘face’ out over the container’s rim,” she says. This spreading pansy is available in eight colors, including a new orange-flowered variety.

Garden mums, like pansies, reliably add weeks of autumn color. Choose your favorite mum flower color and add it to pots throughout the landscape to unify your outdoor spaces. The Axios series of mums is beloved for its long-lasting flowers that resist fading until the very end of the season.

3. Add a Showstopper

If the focal point of your container garden languishes at the end of summer, replace it with a fresh, eye-catching plant. Ornamental grasses and flowering kale work well as instant anchors in a fall container garden. But don't be afraid to try something more unusual, such as newer sunflower varieties that offer bold fall hues.

Ebl recommends Helianthus 'Sunfinity Double Yellow' because it has "amazing branching and staying power, with cuddly teddy-bear centers on its blossoms.” It tops out around 3 feet, making it a good choice for a container focal point.

4. Simplify Your Look

Autumn can be the perfect time to simplify your container planting. If adding new focal point plants and a mix of fall-flowering annuals doesn’t fit your vision for the season, take your fall refresh in another direction and simplify your container schemes. Choose one or two long-lasting, easy-care fall plants and use them in multiple pots. Garden mums, pansies, and kale can fill an entire container by themselves while providing weeks of color as the landscape moves toward winter.

5. Bring on the Harvest

It’s not just plants that get to star in fall containers. Pumpkins, gourds, and ornamental corn all have a place, too. Use this bounty to add instant connection to the season. A collection of winged and warty gourds fills a space left by a faded summer annual. Stalks of ornamental corn serve as a lofty focal point.

6. Continue Your Care Routine

It’s easy to overlook watering chores on cool fall days, but container gardens continue to need regular water. Be mindful of weather patterns and plan to water containers every other day or so, depending on rainfall and temperatures.

7. Protect Your Plants Against Early Frost

Most years, it’s possible to get a couple of extra weeks out of your containers with the help of a cover. Often, an early frost is followed by a few frost-free days. “Cover your pots on nights when an early frost might bite,” Ebl says. “Just a simple bedsheet or lightweight tarp will work. Remove it when the sun comes up.”