What flowering plants are suitable for planting in the October garden

While many people living in the northern climates of our country are enjoying the beautiful autumn-colored leaves and are welcoming the cold of the coming winter, we live in Hainan and similar southern climates, and we look forward to the splendor of the hot summer days and the cooler days ahead.

Autumn growing season

October brings nice changes to the Hainan garden, and the accompanying pictures will show some of the flowers that decorate our home landscape. We have flowers blooming in our outdoor landscape all year round, and I think we enjoy the flowers when we look out the window or walk into the yard.

1. Kalanchoe

Kalanchoes have been adding to our garden for many years, and once these succulent plants are established, they are easy to propagate from leaves or stem cuttings. In this climate, I simply break off a stem, remove the bottom leaves, and put it directly into the ground, keeping it moist for the first week or two.

Once they bloom, the flowers last for a long time and are a gorgeous addition to the garden landscape. After blooming, I remove the flower stems, and if they become too tall or leggy, I cut them back.

2. Sunflower or hummingbird bush

This gorgeous shrub is covered with red tubular flowers and is commonly known as the hummingbird bush because it attracts those beautiful little birds that sip sweet nectar from one flower to another. Freezing weather causes it to die back and lose its leaves. Every spring of the year, I simply cut it back to about one foot from the ground, and it reappears each year and grows larger.

It is a fast grower. I generally start planting hummingbird bushes no larger than one gallon in size. Over the course of a year's growth, our garden will add 120cm or 150cm in width and 180cm or more in height. Once the flowers begin to bloom, they last until the first frost or freeze. Therefore, the hummingbird bush is a beneficial and colorful addition to sunny spots in the landscape.

3. Moss rose

These moss roses are a succulent plant that produces pretty ruffled flowers. They perform well in bright sunlight. They also tolerate dry conditions well. Moss roses are nonstop bloomers. These little charmers look great in a rock garden or anywhere a low-growing flowering plant is needed.

Even through last year's severe and unusual winter, when we had snow twice at different times in Houston, these little ones still survived in the ground, and when we have frost or freeze warnings, we throw cover over the more tender vegetation. I sit them in a bed with other colorful plants. These little ones grow into mounds above the soil, and because of the pretty flowers, they are hard to miss.

4. Rose

Small moss roses grow near their feet, and some other roses are planted in the same garden bed.

5. Lantana

Lantana comes from the verbena family. They are an abundant bedding plant in the Houston climate, and I grow yellow and orange plants in different places around the yard. Nurseries also have other colors available. Lantanas bloom and attract butterflies, bees and hummingbirds.

Last year, some of them were covered and protected from freezing, but even the unprotected lantanas survived the winter, proving their toughness. Depending on the type grown, lantana can grow from 15cm to 150cm or more.

The yellow mounds in my garden are pruned once or twice a year to keep them at 1 foot tall. They seem to recover quickly from their "haircut" and quickly resume their prolific blooming.

The orange one I planted near our small garden area seems to want to grow taller. I keep it reduced so it does not interfere with the bay laurel shrub and the flat parsley and basil planted nearby. Not a day goes by when we do not see butterflies winding their way through our garden, because these lantanas and our other plants attract them to visit.

6. Rose

These rose varieties were planted in our backyard last year, and they have been rewarding us since they bloom nonstop. We have always admired them in places around the city, and they seem to need very little care. I keep them covered, as I do our other roses, and they are all watered and fed regularly.

7. Impatiens

Since we first moved here many years ago, these shade-loving plants have reseeded themselves, almost surrounding this shaded yard on the outside of our home.

Last winter damaged many of them, but those closest to the house and warmer, protected by larger shrubs, survived, and once again, with a little help from my hands, they spread through the yard.

8. Encore azalea

We have several types of azaleas in this yard, and although they put on a spectacular show every spring, these reblooming azaleas bloom once or twice a year, adding extra color to the garden.

When replacing other types of shrubs, I keep planting more of these Encore azaleas. Why would you settle for the same type of flowering shrub that blooms only once if you can have one that blooms more frequently? Encore azaleas come in different colors. The pink one depicted above was already here when we moved into this home. It is a beauty!

9. Climbing rose

I no longer remember the name of this climbing rose that helps beautify our backyard, but it is a beauty! Aside from giving them some type of support, such as a trellis they can grow on, caring for climbing roses is no different from caring for any other type of rose. Climbing roses simply give the garden some pleasing vertical height.

10. Begonia

In our climate, this is a perennial, and it has many different varieties and colors. I had a large number of them in the garden at their previous home and am trying to establish some in this garden. Begonias reward us with continuous flowers and also come in different flower and leaf colors. I hope you enjoy these photos as much as I enjoyed taking them.