5 Fast-Growing Fall Flowers for Containers That Dazzle From the End of Summer Until the First Frost

As August comes to an end, a gardener’s thoughts turn to fall flowers. Now is the perfect time to refill containers for color and fragrance into autumn. Spring flowers are just a memory and summer plantings are beginning to look faded.

When you are looking for fall flowers for pots, you can’t just grab the first plants that come to hand. You need fast-blooming, cold-tolerant, long lasting plants that will provide flowers that brighten the backyard as the temperatures cool.

That’s why I’ve put together this shortlist for you of the five best fall-blooming flowers to fill your containers with bright autumn color from now until winter hits.

Fast-Growing Fall Flowers for Pots

It makes sense to try new, exotic plants in the summer garden. The season is so full of growing green tips and blossoms and fruit that you can afford to take a risk on something different. But as summer wanes and fall arrives, you want tried-and-true fall favorites. Here are the top popular container flowers for fall.

1. Asters

Adding fall color to your backyard is going to cost you something – so why not spend money on fall-blooming perennials that comes back year after year? Annuals can be like rockstars. They live fast and die quickly. If you want something that comes back each year, asters could be your best answer.

Asters flower in late summer and early fall, when other blooms are fading. They offer happy flowers that look like a blend between mums and daisies – and these flowers seem to bloom forever. There are numerous aster varieties that range in size from tiny to tall in colors from white to blue, pink, and purple. You can get a 4-pack of purple asters now from Home Depot.

Asters are easy to grow and fit well into containers. Late-season pollinators will approve of this choice, too. Use asters in pots appropriate for the aster’s mature size. Select a pot that is as wide as your plant’s mature width and about half of its mature height.

Make your asters happy by picking pots that have adequate drain holes and use potting soil that drains well. Place the pot in a site that gets 6 hours a day of direct sun. Check the soil every other day and water when dry.

2. Pansies & Violas

It’s hard not to love a pansy flower, with its cute “face” and bright jewel-tone colors. These cool-season plants, often grown as annuals, are just made for autumn temperatures and are ideal for fall containers.

They ride right through light frosts, bouncing back from even single-digit temperatures. If you want pansies to last as long into winter as possible, pick winter pansies (Viola hiemalis). Wait until weather cools a bit before planting. You can pre-order a wide variety of pansies from Burpee to suit any color palette.

Set up your pansies in containers with ample drainage holes. Use moist, humus-rich, well-draining soil and place your pots in a spot with morning sun and afternoon shade. The sun helps them to bloom, but they live longest in cooler weather.

Watering is a little trickier. As soon as you set up your new pansy containers, they need daily water. Don’t worry! Those drooping pansies are not dead even if they are lying on the soil, they just need big drinks. After a couple of weeks, you can cut back watering to once a week or so.

3. Million Bells

Million bells grow fast and bloom profusely. No, you may not get a million blooms, but you’ll get too many to count. Many gardeners (including me!) grow this warm-weather perennial as an annual. But the lovely blooms, which look like small petunias, ride out the cooling weather well.

Million bells is a fabulous container plant thanks to its mounding growth habit. In fact, it works so well in pots that it is rare to see it planted in the ground. Flowers come in white, blue, pink, purple, red, yellow, and even bronze. You can find all those colors of calibrachoa and more for sale at the Home Depot.

Again, make sure your containers have drain holes and use rich, well-draining soil. Put them in a location that gets full sun or – if necessary – partial sun. Give these plants enough water to keep the soil evenly moist.

4. Chrysanthemums

If there is one plant we associate with autumn, it would be mums. Chrysanthemums are the ultimate fall classic. Known as the “Queen of the Fall,” mums bloom profusely, their jewel-toned flowering magically changing your front porch into a magnificent display of fall color.

While mums can be perennials, those pretty plants available in garden centers in September are best treated as annuals. You can find mums almost anywhere in fall or order these beautiful mums in a decorative pot that come in a variety of colors from the Home Depot.

Chrysanthemum flowers are really gorgeous, available in such a wide range of jewel tones it boggles the mind. Look for shades of white, yellow, pink, lavender, purple, red, bronze, and orange. Each flower isn’t just one flower. It is made up of myriad tiny flowers called florets. Some varieties are tiny, while others are giant.

Plant your fall mums in a container with drain holes. Use well-draining potting soil, too, and give them ample direct sun. Water deeply when a poke of the finger reveals dry soil.

5. Snapdragons

Don’t let the fact that grandma planted snapdragons deter you. These classic old-fashioned flowers are still popular today – and they’re better than ever. The latest hybrids offer more hues and a wide variety of heights, ranging from teeny to knee high and trailing.

With all these improvements, snapdragons are still happy in cool fall weather and a perfect addition to your fall containers. Want bold pops of color in spring or fall? Think snapdragons!

It’s harder to describe the snapdragon flower than many others, because there are so many different variations. And the available colors are too many to list out, especially when you take into account the showy bicolored and tricolored varieties.

You can buy them as plants, like this 4-pack of pink snapdragons from Home Depot, for fast flowers or you can start your own plants with snapdragon seeds from Burpee.

Put any variety that isn’t too tall in your containers, focusing on dwarf and trailing types. Needless to say, you’ll want a container that drains well filled with high-quality potting mix. Water frequently until they are established, then cut back irrigation to a few times a week.