Here in New England and other northern  regions of the USA, our growing season is limited due to cold temperatures. Since I have been gardening it has been my mission to extend that season as long as humanly possible, and thus my constant hunt for plants that bloom into October and November.

One garden stalwart that certainly helps in this pursuit is Sheffield mums (chrysanthemum rubellum). Sheffield mums are NOT the florist mums you can get at the garden center now. See my post here for info on all things ‘”mum”. Instead Sheffield mums are very late perennial plants that overwinter here quite well. I have a variety called ‘Copper Penny’  ( below) and cultivar ( a cross) named ‘Wil’s Wonderful’  and the tried and true pink version . The Sheffield pink  plants are easy to find via friends and fellow gardeners and often local garden club plant sales in the spring which is when they should be (as any mum should be) planted. That is why you don’t find them in garden centers routinely, they are not in bloom when they should be sold and that is not good marketing, even though it is in fact excellent GARDENING which is something many GARDEN centers choose to overlook. The others I have seen on Lazy S Farms website and that is in fact where I ordered my ‘Wils Wonderful’ from.

Another that is also a tough find is the Montauk or Nippon Daisy. More and more I am seeing this plant available and that is a good thing as it is such an asset to the fall garden. Montauk Daisy has very woody stems and cool leathery like foliage .  Its flowers are just like those of Shasta daisy though. Both the Sheffield mums and the Montauk daisies get an early summer shearing here to keep them from getting leggy  and too tall by October. Both also benefit from leaving their foliage intact and uncut through the winter to help them survive .

The third plant is a favorite here because it is completely rabbit proof.

( Montauk Daisies are said to be as well but looky here, that is rabbit damage my friend)

Allium thunbergii ‘Ozawa’ has lovely strappy foliage and adorable nodding blooms. Only growing to about 1-2 feet it is easy to find a home for. Like all alliums it prefers a sunny well drained spot to grow and other than that is undemanding of your attention. It is super hardy , to zone 4. The good thing about it blooming now is that it reminds me, and hopefully you too, how useful alliums are as an easy to care for and visually interesting plant at the perfect ( well really only) time to plant them. You can find allium bulbs in nurseries and garden centers now and popping a few in the ground here and there  will bring loads of delight next year. A few of my other favorites are ‘Purple Sensation’, Allium schubertii which looks like fireworks, and the cute but floppy drumstick allium (a. sphaerocephalon).  ‘Ozawa’  looks great in a rock garden , although those in this photo are actually in the front garden, just near a rock. Great companion plants for the rock garden are earlier blooming saxifrages or even thyme, but in this garden  they are planted with peony and perennial geraniums for spring color,  allium senescens var. glauca or curly allium, clematis , sunflowers  and verbena that bloom in the summer, and heleniums for the later part of the season. All alliums make great and long lasting cut flowers.

All three of these plants have the added bonus of feeding our favorite winged pollinators, the bees,  in warm fall weather when they are still active yet nectar sources are more scarce.