Annuals to Color Up a Southern Fall and Winter

While you may know that pansies, flowering kale, and snapdragons provide wonderful color and can withstand cooler temperatures, there are plenty of alternatives to consider for those with Southern addresses. To lengthen your summer bloom season through the shorter, cooler days of fall and early winter, select annuals that can handle a light frost.

Sweet Alyssum is a reliable garden favorite that offers clusters of dainty pink, purple or white, delicately perfumed flowers on mounding plants. Just make sure to plant it in a location where its scent can be enjoyed! For the best performance, keep it watered and fertilize it monthly.

The glowing color of calendula’s daisy-like flowers are a warm spot in the cool winter landscape and make excellent cut flowers that can be enjoyed indoors, as well. Deadhead (remove finished flowers) regularly to prolong the bloom time.

An excellent cool-season annual, dianthus provides masses of richly colored, fringed blooms. China Pinks or Indian Pinks, as they are also called, are perfect for cutting to use in fresh bouquets. Remove any faded blooms to encourage new growth.

It’s like summer never ends with Gazania’s vibrant, daisy-like blooms. Flowers come in a range of orange, red, rose, yellow and white with many that display blends of two colors. The flower petals close at night, and on dark, cloudy days, and reopen with the sunshine.

Petunias are a summer favorite that can also tolerate a bit of chill. Trimming your petunias when they get leggy in late summer will encourage new growth and flowering to keep your plants looking good well into late fall.

The bright oranges and yellows of marigolds are the perfect accent to warm up the cooler days of autumn. Remove the faded flowers to encourage the formation of new buds. A pot of marigolds makes a colorful accent or centerpiece for a dining or end table on your patio or deck.

The cool color palette of lobelia is a refreshing escape from the hot yellows, reds, and oranges of summer. Flowers are available in soothing shades of blue, lavender, rose, and white. Lobelia looks best in locations where the trailing foliage can grow freely over the sides of a retaining wall, pot, or in a hanging basket.

Use verbena’s wide variety of colors to create bright spots of color throughout your garden. Verbena has beautiful, textured foliage and dense clusters of flowers that can survive light frosts. Trailing types make a lovely choice for hanging baskets and pots, where the foliage and flowers can cascade over the sides of the container.

Evergreen trees and shrubs are the perfect backdrop for colorful flowering annual plants, bringing life to winter landscapes. Many conifers prefer the cooler weather of northern regions but there are a few species that are right at home in the heat of the South. Learn which conifers are right for your landscape in our guide to Growing Conifers in the South.