As summer is winding down, it’s time to think about fall planting. At McDonald Garden Center, our staff has been busy with copious amounts of conferences, meetings, and research to determine what selection of trees and shrubs to recommend to our customers. Fully caffeinated and armed with product brochures, our revered horticulturalists, and a lot of Cheez-Its®, we took into account a variety of factors. These included ease of care, adaptability for the Hampton Roads region, color, curb appeal, and overall aesthetics. And finally, we’ve come to a consensus! Hope you enjoy our 2016 best-of for fall planting. (And If you REALLY love it…we are out of Cheez-Its®)
Popular in Plants:
1. Baby Cakes Thornless Dwarf Blackberry:
This baby is new AND exclusive to McDonald Garden Center in the Hampton Roads area. This darling blackberry bush is the perfect addition to small spaces and patio gardens with sweet, large, and vibrant berries in midsummer. With a rounded growth habit that is perfect for containers, Baby Cakes Thornless Dwarf Blackberry is versatile, attractive, and a great conversation piece for your outdoor space.
2. Autumn Rocket Camellia:
If you’re looking to fill a narrow space in your landscape, the autumn rocket camellia is the cat’s pajamas. With bountiful white blooms that grace us with their unassuming presence in fall, this classic-looking camellia grows upright (like….you guessed it..a rocket) and adapts so well to accompanying plants, you’ll forget what it looked like without it!
3. Pink-a-Boo Camellia
Top-notch Trees
1. October Glory Maple:
Sometimes a tree isn’t able to live up to the splendor its common name promises. Luckily that is most definitely not the case for the October Glory Maple, as its glorious foliage is like a contrastingly vibrant sweep of color from Rembrandt’s paintbrush against a dulled fall sky. A dream for the Hampton Roads landscape, this maple is easy to maintain, grows rapidly, and provides heaps of shade. These beauties tend to go quick, so don’t hesitate on getting them early.
2. Dura Heat River Birch:
The valedictorian of the river birch class of trees, the Dura Heat is, as the name implies, durable in hot conditions. And, considering you could of probably cooked an egg on the King Neptune statue this summer, that’s essential for us in Tidewater. These beauties also get major bonus points for having superior resistance to bugs and disease. The Dura Heat River Birch retains its foliage better than others and radiates the colors of fall with a beautiful cinnamon bark that showcases a pinkish-orange hue.
3. Thundercloud Purple Leaf Plum:
If you have a mauve mindset this year, the Thundercloud Plum tree is your purple paradise. One of the best violet-hued trees on the market, this stunner lives long and is perfectly comfortable as the centerpiece of your landscape. Dark burgundy foliage and eggplant bark has the elegant hue of a vintage 2005 Frédéric Magnien Bourgogne Pinot Noir and blooms ethereal pale pink-to-white flowers that give a strikingly dramatic contrast.