Skip this task if you were good and cleaned, sharpened and oiled your shovels, secateurs and spades last fall. For those of us who put it off till spring, unearth abandoned gardening tools and forsaken containers, and clean them up so they’re ready for another season.

Cabbages and kales for fall containers

With fall in the air, all gardeners’ thoughts turn to autumn planters – right? Like opening the closet to examine the state of our fall wardrobes, planning a container of autumn plants signals the change of season from the fun, but toasty days of summer, to the energizingly crisp cool days of fall.

Each year it seems that nurseries offer a greater variety of plants for autumn containers. There are myriad grasses that wave and whisper with the breezes, heathers that last well into winter, mums, pansies and asters that add splashes of colour and boldly textured ornamental kales and cabbages. Here’s a roundup of some great plants for your fall containers.

Grasses
Purple fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum ‘Rubrum’) still seems to be the popular choice, and why not? Its beautiful burgundy foliage is perfectly complemented by graceful coppery flower tufts. But there are others, too. A green version of fountain grass, P. alopecuroides ‘Hameln’ has pale green feathery flowers flushed with red, and the nodding heads of northern sea oats (Chasmanthium letifolium) shimmer in the sunlight of bright autumn days. Although more of a grain than a grass, ornamental millet (Pennisetum glaucum ‘Purple Majesty’) is a handsome deep purple-coloured upright plant that adds much-needed height to containers.

Heather
White, pink, lavender, lilac, rose and violet – these are just some of the many pastel colours of heather that you’ll find at the nurseries this season. A semi-evergreen subshrub, heathers last well into the winter. Give them good drainage and plenty of peaty soil (they love it on the acidic side) and they’ll be happy.

Mums, pansies and asters
Stalwarts of the autumn garden, mums, pansies and asters come in a rainbow of colours from bright yellows and rusty-hued oranges to purple, white and pink. At a local nursery, I spotted some dwarf asters that are easy to tuck into containers. Look for the magenta-coloured Aster x dumosus and A. novi-belgii ‘Puff’, a frilly white aster, and its pals, the lavender-blue ‘Magic’ and ‘Dragon’. Icicle pansies have become popular both in the garden and in containers. I can’t resist their happy faces! I’ve fallen for ‘Autumn Sun’, a combination of violet with a sunset yellow blotch that looks perfect paired with purple fountain grass and ornamental millet. ‘Rosy Red Ruffle’ and ‘Fire n’ Ice’ are also good strong colours for fall.

Kales and cabbages
Traditional favourites, these cool season ornamental vegetables add texture to a fall arrangement. When visiting a friend’s garden last year, I was bowled over by a towering ornamental kale that she had grown from seed. ‘Red Bor’ is its name, and this spring I found some seedlings at the Toronto Botanical Garden’s sale of annuals, so this season it’s now towering in my garden. But lucky for you, it can be yours too. I found some pot-grown specimens at Fiesta Farms Garden Centre on Christie St. – so if you didn’t grow it from seed this spring, run, don’t walk, to pick up one of these fabulous bold plants!