By: Charity Meier | C&G Newspapers | Published September 3, 2025
METRO DETROIT — Planting flowers around your home in the fall can help bring color and cheer to the otherwise dreary autumn season, and it will brighten your spring season as well.
“It’s a great time of year to grow flowers,” said Matt Colonius, co-owner of Piechnik’s Garden Center and Nursery in Oakland Township and Piechnik’s Greenhouse in Clio. “I mean, it’s a great time of year to establish gardens and rework beds.“
He said that as a landscape architect, the flowers do a lot to enhance the entryway of a home. He said the options are “endless,” and there are plenty of things to be added to a flower garden to enhance it, such as gourds, pumpkins and cornstalks.
“It’s endless. It’s not just natural beauty, but there’s other elements to this that can be added,” Colonius said.
“Fall is for planting,” said Nancy Kassab, owner of Flowers by Nancy K in Berkley. “By planting now, you’ll enjoy early blooms as soon as spring arrives.”
Colonius said that early fall is the best time for planting your spring flowers, but it can be done until at least Halloween.
“It’s a great time to plant perennials, especially this year with the cooler weather moving in early, they get rooted into the ground really well now and should be in place and ready for spring,” Colonius said.
“Tulips and daffodils are planted in the fall and not in the spring,” Piechnik’s co-owner Stan Piechnik said. “Everybody thinks that because it’s a spring flower you plant it in the spring, and it’s not. Fall bulbs are important.”
Kassab said that fall planting gives perennials and spring bulbs such as tulips and daffodils time to establish roots before the ground freezes. She said the cool weather reduces stress on plants, and fall is therefore an ideal time to refresh garden beds.
“It’s more hostile for rooting in the summer than it is in the fall,” Colonius said. “The spring is also a good time for us where rooting is heavier than growth. So, if the plant is not producing a lot of growth, it’s rooting into the ground stronger.”
Kassab said it is also a good time to plant hardy seasonal flowers. She said the most popular outdoor fall flower by far is the chrysanthemum, but other seasonal flowers include pansies, violas, ornamental kale and cabbage, camellias, and winter jasmine.
“For fall color you want to put in a lot of hardy mums; we sell some other hardy annuals like pansies, celosia, and some of the other annual grasses like purple fountain grass, and those are best used in planters for the fall,” said Colonius.
According to Colonius, many people are looking for fall flowers right now to enhance and freshen up their gardens as a result of the heat this summer.
“Hardy mums are a great way to do that, and we sell over 80 different varieties of hardy mums,” he said. “Hardy asters are great this time of year both for gardens and for planting in planters.”
He said the flowers that are not going to come back are best used for color by the door of your home, and the hardy perennials should be put directly into the ground.
Piechnik said that it is important to look into flower bulbs that are more resistant to deer. According to Piechnik, daffodils are much more resistant to deer than tulips; however, there are some newer tulip varieties that are resistant to deer.
Colonius said that in the spring, the flower bulbs come up and the deer like to eat them, essentially eating the flowers and ruining a garden.
Colonius said that they have a lot of products that offer some resistance to the deer, but nothing is foolproof.
“There’s really nothing that completely works for the deer,” he said. “They may smell at one and back away from it, but long term they might get used to the smell and figure nothing happened so I’m going to go ahead and eat it anyways, so we sell a lot of products that are kind of that way and they begin to work, and when the deer figure it out, they go ahead and chow down anyway. So, the jury’s kind of out on that one,” Colonius said.
He said there have been changes in the flower, nursery and landscaping industry because of the deer. He said they now often consider what plants will grow and not get eaten because of the deer.
Fall bouquets are another option to brighten a home. Kassab said the best flowers for fall bouquets include sunflowers, dahlias, roses, eucalyptus and narcissus. She said winter jasmine is “sunshine in winter,” amaryllis is “festive and dramatic,” paperwhites offer “fragrant elegance,” cyclamen has vibrant petals and heart leaves, and orchids offer lasting beauty.
“Flowers are so beautiful; they add color, texture and variety, instantly brightening up any space,” Kassab said.
She said that sun-loving flowers are usually low-maintenance if watered regularly and are good for those who are new to gardening.
Other easy-to-care-for flowers are marigolds, zinnias, sunflowers and geraniums, Kassab said, while roses, lavender and daisies need more moderate care.
According to Kassab, flowers are proven to reduce stress and boost happiness.
“Coming home to a garden of blooms creates a calming, uplifting environment,” she said.