The Commemoration

In 2007, Virginia will mark the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. The 18-monthlong commemoration began in May 2006 and features educational programs, cultural events, fairs, and various live and broadcast entertainment sponsored by the Commonwealth of Virginia and many of its cities and towns. See the America’s 400th Anniversary website at www.americasanniversary.com for information about this salute to America’s birthplace.

The Statewide Garden Theme

As part of the Jamestown commemoration, communities and citizens will be improving their streets, parks, schools, businesses, and gardens to spotlight the horticultural diversity and beauty of Virginia. Virginia Cooperative Extension developed the America’s Anniversary Garden™ (AAG) to help individuals, communities, and groups commemorate America’s 400th anniversary with a signature landscape or garden. These signature gardens have red, white, and blue color schemes and are being promoted throughout Virginia and beyond. Other VCE garden design, plant selection, plant installation, and maintenance publications for America’s Anniversary Garden™ are listed in the Resources section.

The Challenge of Fall and Winter Garden Color

Spring and summer gardens are easy to plan, regardless of color scheme, because thousands of species and cultivars of annual and perennial flowers grow and bloom during those seasons. Designing color into fall and winter gardens isn’t as easy because fewer flowers are available that can survive cold temperatures.

For fall and winter garden color we rely heavily on the leaves, fruit, and bark of woody plants. A tree or shrub already existing in your garden may have red fall leaf color that can serve as the background for a red, white, and blue fall and winter annual or perennial garden. If not, you might want to start a new garden, selecting trees and shrubs with fall and winter color, that is based on our sample designs from Plant America’s Anniversary Garden™ or America’s Anniversary Garden™: A Statewide Corridor and Entrance Enhancement Program (see Resources section).

If you start a new garden this fall or winter, you can design a progression of red, white, and blue flower color for next year starting with the pansies suggested in this publication, the spring bulbs suggested in America’s Anniversary Garden™: Bulbs for a Red, White, and Blue Spring Garden, and the annuals and perennials suggested in Plant America’s Anniversary Garden™ or America’s Anniversary Garden™: A Statewide Corridor and Entrance Enhancement Program (see Resources section).

Perennial Flowers for Fall Red, White, and Blue Color

For fall (until hard frost/freeze) there are several herbaceous perennials that can provide late-season color. All are hardy across Virginia and work wonderfully in mixed borders along with the AAG-recommended trees and shrubs.

Asters dominate the late-autumn perennial border, and there are many native species and hybrids suitable for the AAG color motif. White wood aster (Aster divaricatus) is a tough native perennial with metallic deep green foliage and sparkling white autumn flowers that is best used in part shade. Aster azureus, the sky blue aster, blooms deep blue. There are several cultivars of Aster novaeangliae (New England aster) with clean white flowers including ‘Lyon’s White’ and ‘Wedding Lace.’ Of the hundreds of cultivars of New York asters (Aster novi-belgii) available there are true crimson-reds (‘Alert,’ ‘Crimson Brocade,’ ‘The Bishop,’ and ‘Royal Ruby’) and blues (‘Lady in Blue,’ ‘Buxton’s Blue,’ and ‘Climax’). Aster tartaricus, the tartarian daisy, is non-native but definitely garden worthy. This is one the latest blooming asters (October and November), tolerant of light frost, and perfect for the AAG display if you don’t mind a touch of violet in your blue.

Leadwort (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides) is a tough but beautiful groundcover with royal blue flowers throughout the summer and fall. A bonus with the leadwort is that once the temperatures dip in the autumn, the foliage turns red-bronze. Hybrid anemone (Anemone x hybrida ‘Honorine Jobert’) sports white poppy-like flowers atop tall wiry stems. “Hardy” fallblooming mums (Chrysanthemum hybrids) are available in deep red and creamy white, but be aware that many mums sold as “hardy” may not come back next year and are best treated as a one-time color boost for autumn.

The red berries on a deciduous holly serve as the background for a bed of blue and white pansies.

This America’s Anniversary Garden™ will have a combination of annual red, white, and blue pansies and permanent woody landscape plants (re dtwigdogwood and deciduous holly).

Red, white, and blue pansies can be used in the landscape and in containers.

This combination planting shows blue fall and winter pansies with early spring red tulips and white daffodils.

Annual Flowers for Fall and Winter Red, White, and Blue Color 

If you plan to transition your fall and winter America’s Anniversary Garden™ to a spring-bulb garden, locate and plant your fall and winter annuals and bulbs at the same time. After they flower in the spring, your bulbs can stay in place and your winter annuals can be replaced with red, white, and blue summer annuals to produce a seasonal color transition in the same garden or landscape bed.

Both pansies (Viola x wittrockiana) and violas (Viola x cornuta) are perfect for cool season color in the late fall, winter, and early spring. As with many annuals, seed companies market pansies and violas not as individual cultivars, but as “series.” A series is a group of plants selected for similar habit and growing qualities but not necessarily genetically related. Nearly every pansy series has red, white, and blue options. For example, a widely-grown, well-performing series is the Delta hybrids, available in clear red, white, and blue. For those who like a “face” or darker blotch on their pansies, there’s the Delta Spirit Mix, red with blotch, blue with blotch, and solid white.

You can also plan ahead and combine fall and winter pansies with late-winter or early-spring blooming bulbs.

Seed trials across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic have shown the smaller-flowered viola hybrids (often called Johnny jump-ups) to be more weather resistant and cold tolerant than large-flowered pansies that are the best choice for AAG’s in zone 6. Two popular series of violas are the Sorbet hybrids and the Penny hybrids – both have several blue and white selections, and at least one red. Penny’s White, Deep Blue, and Red Blotch make a great combination, as do Sorbet’s Coconut and Blue Ice (there is no scarlet or red in the Sorbet series).

Ornamental kale and cabbage (Brassica oleraceae hybrids) thrive in cool weather and lend texture and novelty to the winter color planting. The Colorup and Osaka series of ornamental cabbage feature red and creamy white selections, as do the Nagoya, Peacock, and Chidori hybrids of ornamental kale. Ornamental kale leaves are more feathery or rippled than those of cabbage, which is more compact. For the best garden performance, plant ornamental cabbages and kales in the fall so they have time to become established before really cold weather.

This small landscape design (from America’s Anniversary Garden: Bulbs for a Red, White, and Blue Spring Garden – Figure 2) has pansies in the locations where summer annuals can be transitioned in after the pansies finish blooming.

A red and purple fall color mixture on a sweet gum brightens the landscape

Purple-tinged red fall color on oakleaf hydrangea adds color.

The hawthorn has persistent red fruit.

Two evergreens, a yaupon holly (top) and a nandina (bottom) sport red berries, and the nandina has red fall leaf color as an added bonus).

The redtwig dogwood has red bark.

Japanese camellia cultivars offer red, white, red and white, and blue-edged red blooms.

The native vine virginsbower adds a very noticeable display of white flowers to fall gardens.

A “woody” America’s Anniversary Garden™ shows off the Colorado blue spruce’s leaves (foreground), the deciduous holly’s red berries, and river birch’s whitish bark (both background).

The female fringetree has blue berries.

Resources

America’s Anniversary Garden™ website, http://www.ext.vt.edu/americasgarden/

Plant America’s Anniversary Garden™, Virginia Cooperative Extension publication 426-210, http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/426-210/

America’s Anniversary Garden: A Statewide Corridor and Entrance Enhancement Program, Virginia Cooperative Extension publication 426-211, http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/426-211/

America’s Anniversary Garden: Bulbs for a Red, White, and Blue Spring Garden, Virginia Cooperative Extension publication 426-220, http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/426-220/

America’s Anniversary Garden™: Native Plants, Virginia Cooperative Extension publication 426-223, http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/426-223/

Annuals: Culture and Maintenance, Virginia Cooperative Extension publication 426-200, http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/426-200/

Virginia Cooperative Extension publication 430-295, http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/430-295/

Acknowledgments

The authors offer special thanks to reviewers: Adria Bordas, Extension agent, Fairfax County; Debbie Dillion, program associate, Loudoun County; Laurie Fox, Extension horticulture associate, Hampton Roads AREC.

Landscape watercolors by Elizabeth Maurer.
Photographs by Bonnie Appleton.
Project supported by funding from Jamestown 2007.

Other resources in:

• Annuals, Perennials & Bulbs
• Garden & Landscape Design

Other resources by:

• Bonnie L. Appleton
• Holly L. Scoggins
• Joyce Latimer
• Elizabeth Maurer
• David Close
• Leanne DuBois

Other resources from:

• Horticulture