By: Ava Green

As temperatures begin to cool down, autumn colours set in and surround us with the beauty that is fall in southern Ontario. Suddenly summer is gone and it’s time to think about creating a cozy atmosphere inside and outside that is inspired by the world around us.

Autumn Outside

Whether you gather items from the garden or from the garden centre for a display, there are lots of natural materials all around us to draw from. Take some plumes from ornamental grasses and put them in decorative buckets. Add branches with colourful leaves or dried seed pods, and pumpkins or mums for a pop of colour. A bland background becomes the perfect backdrop.

Looking for something to grow? Create fall planters with sunflowers, ornamental kale, ornamental peppers, live grasses, and, of course, fall mums.

We offer beautifully festive arrangements with a variety of ornamental fall plants, as well as individual plants to decorate an outdoor table, or as a planter creating a warm welcome on your front porch (watch here: Jeanine create a fall planter on our IG).

Eising’s popular Porch Packages make it easy to decorate the entryway to your home. But don’t wait, they sell out quickly!

Autumn Inside

When there are fall colours outside, autumn displays inside create continuity that will carry your indoor decorating right into the holiday season in December.

Displays that are vibrant, warm, rustic or whimsical are fun and easy to make. Here are some basic design principles that will help you get started, along with examples we’ve created using items in the Eisng shop.

The Rule of Odds

Using an odd number of items (3, 5 or 7) is always more appealing. Why? For some reason, odd numbers are just more harmonious for us to take in. Designers and photographers call it the rule of odds.

Pick a Theme

Pick a theme like a common colour, a shape, a design or motif. Look for containers or items you can include that fit in with your theme. 

Like the arrangements we offer at Eising Garden Centre, include the following in your designs:

• a thriller like a beautiful vase or container, a tropical plant, or fresh or dried flowers
• a spiller like a plant, dried or silk leaves or moss around the base of containers 
• and a filler like foliage plants, fruit, candy, mini pumpkins and gourds, or moss 

Size and Scale

Scale is important! Keep the display short if it’s for the centre of a dining table so that guests can see each other across the table! Create taller displays if you’re decorating a corner table or a mantlepiece.

Light it Up

Adding light, including flameless candles or fairy lights, instantly brings warmth to any display.

Aromatics

Include scent: using plants like eucalyptus, or fruit like apples or oranges, and spices like whole cloves and cinnamon sticks all add a homey touch.

We would love to see what you create and hope this has sparked your creativity. Don’t forget to tag @Eising Greenhouses & Garden Centre on your Instagram and Facebook posts when you share your decorations online - we would love to see them!

By: Dave Zeldon and Ely Schweyer

The classic fall-blooming Chrysanthemum varieties of burnt amber, golden yellow, and deep burgundy blooms have been enormously popular for years, and as each new fall season rolls around, there always seems to be new varietal introductions – like multicoloured pinks with the hues of sunrises - to enhance your front porch display of pumpkins, corn stalks, and gourds.

   These robust plants will produce blooms for weeks, even in the coolest of autumn weather. Their hardiness even offers versatility when it comes to their display; some gardeners prefer less labour-intensive groundskeeping and leave them in their original store pots, whereas others prefer to transplant these flowers into larger planters, window boxes, or into flowerbeds to add an easy seasonal flair.

While resilient, these plants still need some TLC. Try these tips to keep your Mums looking fresh throughout the fall.

• Choose green plants with tightly closed buds. This way when your Mums do bloom, you will be able to keep those colourful displays for much longer.
• The Mums' foliage should have a deep green colour and lots of growth at the garden centre.
• Also, make sure the soil in the container is moist when purchasing your plant, as dried out Mums may have already suffered damage.
• You'll find out in short order that your potted Mums are very thirsty plants! Water them daily and make sure the soil remains moist. A shot of liquid fertilizer to the irrigation water once a week would be great as well.

Over-Wintering Mums

Modern Mum breeding is aimed primarily at creating plants that look good in their pots at their point of purchase, sacrificing the plant’s hardiness and performance for future years - meaning when home gardeners try to overwinter these big potted plants, they are not usually successful.

   All Mum plants at garden centres are hardy, meaning that they are perennials in most climates. However, if these plants are put in the ground from August on, most won't make it through winter. The reason is that Mums planted late in the season are near, or at, the flowering stage, when their energy is focused into blooming, and they won't grow roots to sustain plants through the winter. This is why Mums should be planted in the spring if you want a perennial plant that has a spectacular autumn show!

   If you really adore your fall purchase though, you can try to over-winter your Chrysanthemums in the basement or a dark, cold closet, after the first frost. Water well and place in an area where it is totally dark and 0°C to 10°C. The plants will hibernate for the winter if you keep their roots damp. Check the pots weekly.

   In the spring, gradually acclimate your Mum plants to light and plant them out in the garden after the last killing frost, remembering to pinch them twice prior to the first of August for a full, lush plant.

   We hope this helps you to enjoy your Mums just a little bit longer! Use our Plant Finder to search for a sample of our Mum selection by your preferred colour. You can find many Mum varieties and more information at Eising Greenhouse and Garden Centre, please stop in for a visit this autumn!

Dealing with water restrictions or choosing to conserve water? You’re not alone. Many gardeners in Norfolk County are facing the challenge of keeping gardens thriving with less water. The good news? A lush, colourful garden is still within reach—thanks to drought-tolerant perennials.

When we think of drought-tolerant plants, cacti might be the first thing that comes to mind. But there’s a surprising variety of beautiful, hardy perennials that can handle our region’s dry spells—no desert landscape required.

While these plants do need regular watering when first planted, once established, they’re low-maintenance and well-suited to Southern Ontario’s climate, including periods of limited rainfall.

Full Sun Ground Cover

• Candytuft (Iberis sempervirens)
• Catmint (Nepeta x faassenii)
• Hardy ice plant (Delosperma nubigenum)
• Hens and chicks (Sempervivum tectorum)
• Moss phlox, creeping phlox (Phlox subulata)
• Pincushion flower (Scabiosa japonica var. alpina) (S. ‘Butterfly Blue’)
• Pinks (Dianthus alpinus)
• Rock cress, wall cress (Arabis species)
• Rock rose, sun rose (Helianthemum hybrids)
• Spurge (Euphorbia myrsinites) (E. polychroma)
• Stonecrop (Sedum acre) - dwarf varieties
• Thrift, sea pink (Armeria maritima)
• Thyme (Thymus species)

Full Sun, Medium to Tall Plants

• Beard-tongue (Penstemon digitalis) – Native
• Bergenia (Bergenia crassifolia)
• Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) – Native
• Blanket flower (Gaillardia x grandiflora)
• Butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosa) – Native
• False indigo, wild indigo (Baptisia australis)
• Hairy penstemon (Penstemon hirsutus) – Native
• Lanceleaf coreopsis (Coreopsis lanceolata) – Native
• Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia)
• Orange coneflower (Rudbeckia fulgida ‘Goldsturm’)
• Perennial cornflower (Centaurea montana)
• Poppy (Papaver species)
• Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)
• Prickly pear cactus (Opuntia compressa) – Native
• Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia)
• Salvia (Salvia nemerosa hybrids)
• Sea Holly (Eryngium species)
• Silver sage, wormwood (Artemisia ludoviciana)
• Threadleaf coreopsis (Coreopsis verticillata) – Native
• Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)  

Full Sun Grasses

• Big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) – Native
• Blue fescue (Festuca glauca)
• Blue oat grass (Helictotrichon sempervirens)
• Feather reed grass (Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’)
• Little blue stem (Schizachyrium scoparium) – Native
• Switch grass (Panicum virgatum) – Native

Groundcover for Shade

• Barrenwort (Epimedium hybrids)
• Bigroot geranium (Geranium macrorrhizum)
• Canada anemone (Anemone canadensis) – Native
• Creeping phlox (Phlox stolonifera)
• Sweet Woodruff (Galium odoratum)
• Wild ginger (Asarum canadense) – Native
• Woodland phlox (Phlox divaricata) – Native

Medium to Tall Plants for Shade

• False Solomon’s seal (Maianthemum racemosum) – Native
• Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum biflorum) – Native

Ferns for Dry Shade

• Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides) – Native
• Hay-scented fern (Dennstaedtia punctilobula) – Native
• Marginal wood fern (Dryopteris marginalis) – Native
• Male fern (Dryopteris filix-mas) – Native
• Rock fern (Polypodium virginianum) – Native

A Little TLC

It doesn’t take much to keep drought-tolerant plants thriving—just a little attention and some seasonal TLC. While they’re tough, even these hardy perennials appreciate an occasional deep watering during extended dry spells, especially in their first year.

For sun-loving perennials, skip the heavy fertilizers. Instead, an annual layer of compost is all they need to stay healthy and strong.

Shade-loving drought-tolerant plants, on the other hand, benefit from a layer of mulch. This helps retain moisture and reduces evaporation, especially in dry shade, which is one of the most challenging conditions for any plant to thrive in.

And don’t forget to deadhead regularly! Removing spent blooms encourages your plants to keep producing flowers instead of going to seed, meaning more colour, for longer.

With a few simple care tips, your drought-tolerant garden can remain beautiful and resilient throughout the entire season.

Other resources:

• Landscape Ontario: Eight Beautiful Drought Tolerant Plants
• Toronto Master Gardeners: Drought Tolerant Plants
• Guelph.ca: Drought Tolerant Native Plants

Coneflowers (Echinacea) have earned their place in perennial borders, pollinator gardens, and meadow-style landscapes—and for good reason. These hardy, vibrant perennials reliably return each spring in our Ontario Zone 6 climate, adding long-lasting colour and texture to any garden.

The classic Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) begins with soft, pink-tinged petals that deepen into rich purple hues as the season progresses. At its peak, the familiar domed centre cone emerges—an eye-catching structure that dries beautifully and provides winter interest in the garden. 

Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)

Choose From The Rainbow

While the purple coneflower is the most iconic, hybrids now come in nearly every colour of the rainbow. You'll find stunning varieties in pink, white, green, orange, and fiery reds.

No matter your garden’s colour scheme, there’s likely a coneflower to match. Even better, their bold blooms attract pollinators like bees and butterflies, while the seed heads feed songbirds in fall and winter.

Low Maintenance, Long-Blooming Beauty

Coneflowers are both showy and easy to care for—ideal for beginners and seasoned gardeners alike. Here’s what you need to know:

Growth habit:

• Height: 24–60 inches, depending on the variety

• Spread: 12–24 inches

• Bloom time: Mid-summer to fall

Growing conditions:

• Sun: Full sun is best, though light shade is tolerated

• Soil: Well-drained soil is key

• Water: Drought-tolerant once established, but thrives with consistent watering

• Fertilizer: Not necessary

Pro tips for success:

• Pinch back in early summer to encourage bushier, sturdier plants and decrease the chance of powdery mildew forming

• Deadhead spent blooms early in the season to prolong flowering

• Leave seed heads in late summer and fall for winter beauty and bird food

• Optional self-seeding: Let them go to seed for a naturalized look, or remove blooms to prevent self-seeding

Coneflower Companions

Coneflowers mix beautifully with a variety of other perennials. For vibrant, complementary plantings, try pairing them with:

• Salvia

• Crocosmia

• Hyssop (Agastache)

• Catmint (Nepeta)

• Phlox

• Ornamental grasses

These companions share similar growing requirements and will enhance the colour and texture of your garden throughout the growing season.

Visit Us for More Ideas

Want help choosing the perfect Coneflower variety or finding the right garden companions? Stop by Eising Garden Centre and chat with our perennial expert, Mary. She’ll help you create stunning combinations that bloom beautifully from summer into fall.

You’ve selected your annual and perennial plants, chosen their location in the garden, amended the soil and everything is planted. Or close to it!  Now what? How can you take care of them to maximize their potential?  A bit of simple and easy maintenance will keep your plants healthy and blooming.

Once they start blooming, most annuals will flower all season long, until cold temperatures or frost put an end to their display. Many perennials will bloom for several weeks. We listed some of our favourites in this article if you missed it.

Here are some simple tips to keep your plants looking great!

Water

Newly planted annuals and perennials, even drought tolerant plants need to be watered at planting time. 

Perennials will need water every week for the first two weeks and during periods without rain. Most perennials do well with a minimum of one inch of water per week.  

Water is absorbed through the roots, so water the soil and not the foliage. Low (pressure) and slow (volume) allows water to adequately soak into the soil instead of running all over the place! It’s also best to water in the morning rather than at night because foliage that stays wet all night is susceptible to rot and foliar diseases. 

Annuals planted in containers will need to be watered more frequently than annuals in a flower bed. Hanging baskets and planters will most likely need water daily, and in the heat of summer twice a day. For hanging baskets, the water should run out of the bottom. 

In planters or the garden, use your finger in the soil to test it out - if it feels dry, your plant needs water.

Mulch

Mulch is always a very good idea to maintain soil health in the garden no matter what you’re planting!

An organic mulch will help enrich your soil, and keep it moist. A layer of at least 2 inches of mulch will also suppress weeds. Who doesn’t love that? The only caveat: don’t allow the mulch to touch your plants.

Deadhead

Deadheading or removing flowers that have finished blooming is important for many plants. Doing this allows the energy from the plant to be sent to producing new blossoms in annuals, and some perennials.  

How do you do it? Take sharp, clean scissors or pruners, and cut off any dead flowers just below the base of the flower or above the first leaf. With some plants you can simply break off the spent flowers.

Bonus: your plants will look much better without dead flowers on them! 

Note: some annuals don’t need deadheading. For example, Verbena, Lantana, Lobelia, Impatiens, Petunias, and Begonia.

Fertilizer

Let’s face it, fertilizer packaging can be confusing. They often feature three letters and three numbers. What does it all mean? What is N-P-K? This Eising article explains all you need to know about fertilizing and is worth the read. 

However, in a nutshell, this is a really easy way to remember the function of N (nitrogen), P (phosphorous and K (potassium) when it comes to fertilizing. The numbers are the percentage of each of those nutrients that the fertilizer package contains. 

N = UP - foliage and blooms

P = DOWN - roots

K = ALL AROUND - overall plant health

If you used an organic, slow-release fertilizer when you planted your annuals or perennials in the ground, you shouldn’t have to fertilize again during the season. 

Most potting soil in planters or hanging baskets contains the nutrients needed to help your plants get started. An easy way to maintain nutrients throughout the season is sprinkling Shake n’ Feed Ultra Bloom 10-18-9 slow release fertilizer on top of the soil. It will slowly  feed your plants for three months.  For heavy feeders like petunias or plants that are hungry, looking light, and in need of an instant boost, use a water-soluble fertilizer with an NPK ratio of approximately 20-20-20 every two weeks to keep them blooming. 

For perennials, trees and shrubs that need more nutrients during the year, Shake n’ Feed slow release 18-6-12 fertilizer can be applied in the spring and it will feed your plants for three months during the growing season. The same fertilizer can be used for trees, shrubs and perennials in subsequent seasons.

As a rule of thumb, it’s better to under-fertilize and watch how your plants respond. Over-fertilizing can lead to sick plants that have yellow or brown leaves. In your garden, the only way to know what your plants need is to test the soil. Otherwise you’re guessing! To test your soil in Ontario, samples can be sent to The University of Guelph.

Shrubs that flower in summer and fall make gorgeous accent plants for the landscape. We're so accustomed to seeing trees and shrubs blossom during spring, so it's a real treat to have all that vibrant colour and texture to enjoy throughout the later months of our growing season in Southern Ontario. 

While many gardeners will insist that summer is too hot to plant shrubs, that simply isn't the case! It can still be done successfully if you follow the correct steps to prevent your plant from getting heat stress. If you wait until later in the evening on a cloudy day to transplant a shrub, then water it thoroughly after planting, it will have all night to adjust to its new habitat and will be hydrated—ready to soak up the summer sun the following morning. 

Want to enhance the design and layout of your yard with some large, flowering shrubs? These late-season bloomers will bring a burst of colour and energy to the landscape, creating a fantastic setting for summer entertaining, hangouts on the patio, and picture-perfect photo ops.  

Bluebeard

True blue is certainly the rarest colour to encounter in the plant world, so we can't help but get excited when we see flowering plants sporting this deep, cool hue. Our Beyond Midnight Bluebeard is totally on-trend—after all, Pantone named 'Classic Blue' as the 2020 Colour of the Year! 

Bluebeard is a gorgeous flowering shrub that blooms from late summer to early fall, and its dark, glossy green foliage catches the sunlight beautifully. Plant it in full sun for best results, and prune it yearly in early spring, right at the first sign of new growth. Make sure its soil is well-draining because this shrub does not take kindly to soggy earth or stagnant water hanging around its roots. 

Butterfly Bush

These pollinator-friendly shrubs have incredibly vivid flowers that attract butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds alike. Our Crown Jewels variety has some of the brightest purple petals we've ever seen, nestled in a mass of golden lime green foliage. Talk about a high-impact colour palette!

Butterfly bush is an incredibly hardy plant that's resistant to drought and tolerant of rocky soils. You'll have to water it regularly for the first few months after planting, but by year two, you'll be able to just leave it be, and the regular rainfall will be plenty enough to keep it hydrated.  

Hydrangea Macrophylla

There's something so dreamy and beautiful about the lush clusters of flowers boasted by the hydrangea macrophylla—there's a reason why they're so popular for wedding bouquets! With so many different varieties and colours to choose from, you're bound to find a variety that suits your fancy. 

We really love our Bloomstruck hydrangeas because their colour can shift from blue to pink, depending on the soil's pH levels. The blossoms last all summer long, but even after they fade, this shrub adds so much visual interest through the fall, because of its emerald green foliage transitions into a rich, warm burgundy colour.

Rose of Sharon

Rose of Sharon actually comes from the hibiscus family, and it grows in an upright form that can be trained into a tree shape. Like most hibiscus plants, Rose of Sharon's flowers are quite large and showy. Our Woodbridge variety has stunning blossoms in a rosy blush shade, with a ruby red centre. It loves the sun and can grow up to ten feet tall and six feet wide, so it makes an excellent option for privacy borders around the perimeter of your yard.

Smoke Tree

The smoke tree gets its name from it's wispy, fluffy blossoms that look like plumes of smoke. If you love rich purples and warm fall colour palettes, you'll go absolutely gaga over our Royal Purple smoke tree, which has reddish-purple blossoms and foliage to match! Once autumn rolls around, the leaves will actually turn a brighter cranberry red shade. 

Make sure you leave plenty of space around your smoke tree when planting because they can reach up to 15 feet high and 12 feet wide! Regular pruning should help keep it a manageable size if you don't want it to get too large. Once it's established, it will appreciate it if you occasionally give it a thorough watering, especially in summer, during hot, dry spells. 

Need some help getting your new shrubs in the ground? We're happy to offer planting services for those of you who are new to landscaping! To see more of our incredible selection of flowering shrubs you can grow here in Simcoe, take a look through our newly launched webstore, so you can order all the plants and supplies you need, right from the comfort of your own home.