More Than Mums for the Autumn Rush

Ipomoea ‘Bright Ideas Rusty Red’

Back-to-School is popping up here and there so that means the late summer/early fall gardening rush is about to begin.  Customers will need color as they tie up loose ends in the yard before the hectic pace of another school year swings into gear. Autumn sales always improve when you offer other choices along with your Mums so replenish your inventory with fresh material that’s shipping this week:

Ornamental Pepper ‘Chilly Chili’

Celosia 'Intenz' grows fast and blooms hard until frost

It’s high summer and the bold spiky plumes of Celosia ‘Intenz’ are coloring up hot dry spots in full sun. This plant is a heat lover that keeps delivering color right on into autumn. It blooms right up until a killing frost so it’s great for dressing up the fall landscape as well. ‘Intenz’ has a versatile compact size and mounded upright habit that make it a good fit for bumping up the texture and vertical interest of our autumn displays.

Vibrant magenta-purple pops alongside bright orange Mums or pumpkins—it’s a fuzzy unexpected surprise among traditional harvest shades of yellow and gold. Mix ‘Intenz’ with silvery Dusty Miller or Ipomoea ‘SolarPower Lime’ if you want to cool down the glow and add contrast. These feathery flowers would make a funky magenta mustache for one of those jack-o-lantern heads we planted up a couple of years back for Halloween.

Celosia ‘Intenz’ is available in the 6-inch pot.

We got a note late last week from one of our readers. He writes:

“I don't know if you would use this photo in marketing, but this guest just bought 7 of your ‘fresh for fall’ annuals that just arrived today and she is not the first to buy a handful.

Push this on your retailers, because the time to sell is now…all these retailers think it’s too early, and they all end up being too late.”

We’ve noticed the importance of mid-August ourselves. It seems to form the core of the Back to School rush. Folks are fixing up their gardens for the last summer hurrah before the kids go back and once the calendar slides by—those sales don’t return.