Add Color To A Fall Garden With A Vibrant Annual Flower Pollinators Love

The massive and stunning blooms of mums are such classics for bringing color to your autumn garden, that you could easily forget about some of the other wonderful fall garden flowers available. One beautiful but petite bloom you definitely don't want to skip out on planting is the viola. Not only do many species of violas thrive in the cooler autumn days and bring a range of stunning colors to your garden, but they're also a great way to attract and help out your local pollinators.

Some of the most popular types of violas to grow in your garden include pansies (Viola x wittrockiana) and Johnny jump ups (Viola tricolor). While these colorful flowers may be more common in spring, they're also perfect for autumn. Butterflies and many specialized bees adore them as well and can use them as a food source as temperatures cool and other flowers become less available. The plants are even tough enough to handle some frost and snow and often keep blooming right up until your area experiences a hard freeze. In some areas these flowers may even be in bloom in November.  Even better, violas often reseed themselves, so if you let a few flowers go to seed instead of deadheading them, you may also have some beautiful flowers in spring — though they likely will not look the same as their parent plant due to hybridization. 

Garden centers and online plant retailers generally offer a wide range of pansies (which all fit under the viola umbrella) during spring and autumn months. While you can also start them from seed, it often takes several months for them to mature enough to flower. So you would need to plan ahead quite a bit for these to be part of your autumn garden. Otherwise, stick with the live plants that you can get at the garden centers. Be sure to plant your violas in a well-draining container garden or garden bed in a sunny or partly sunny spot. They also require regular watering to grow well and benefit from occasional additions of a slow release fertilizer. 

With a height of only 9 or 10 inches tall and wide, violas are perfect for the fronts of butterfly and pollinator garden beds or for acting as a filler in the classic container garden recipe of "filler, spiller, and thriller." While you may see the classic bright purple and yellow flowers most often, they are far from the only ones available. The spookily dark 'Sorbet Black Delight' viola could be a perfect addition to a Halloween themed garden. There are also moody shades to consider like the jewel toned purple in the 'Sorbet XP Raspberry' viola. So don't be afraid to get creative with them!