Add Amazing Fall Color To Your Yard With This Stunning Fruit-Producing Perennial

Gardeners tend to gravitate toward colorful foliage to create a stunning autumnal display, but they often forget to include berry-producing perennials in their yards. Some berries — and berry-like fruits — color up in time for autumn, adding texture and an amazing source of fall color in the landscape. Gardeners looking for a very drought-resistant option that can be grown in USDA Hardiness Zones 4 to 8 should consider Arkansas rose (Rosa arkansana), one of the best plants to add in fall for a garden full of color. With berry-like fruits, this perennial shrub native to Arkansas, western and central Canada, and the central U.S. adds interest to the garden throughout multiple seasons.

Adding Arkansas rose to your yard will give you stunning flowers throughout the summer and color in autumn, thanks to its fruit. These flowers appear in shades of pink, deep rose, or pink-white bicolor until they fade at the end of summer, and in their place produce orangish-red, berry-like fruits called rosehips. Those rosehips make Arkansas rose one plant variety that'll bring fall birds to your yard and garden, but the fruits will remain throughout winter if the birds don't devour them first. Also known as prairie rose, this shrubby perennial with prickly, upright stems reaches 1 to 5 feet tall and wide. In addition to birds, Arkansas roses also attract pollinators like bumble bees and butterflies.

When adding Arkansas rose to your yard for stunning fall color, pick a location in full sun with well-draining, humus-rich soil. This plant can also grow well in both moist and dry soils, whether rocky, sandy, or clay, and prefers a pH of 5.6 to 7.0. Although this shrubby perennial is amazingly drought-tolerant once established, after producing its berry-like fruits in areas with freezing weather or drought, the stems of this rose bush may die, but they will regrow in spring as conditions go back to normal.

Gardeners looking for ideas on how to add prairie roses to their yards may find inspiration in knowing that, in the wild, these roses grow along banks and in prairies. Arkansas rose can be grown to form thickets, or stunning flower- or berry-covered hedges. You can also add prairie rose to a pollinator or butterfly garden to provide a perennial pop of red to add to your fall color. If you're looking for companion plants, consider little bluestem grass, sagebrush, and sumac for some amazing combinations. As a bonus, the berry-like fruits are edible, so you might want to save leftover rosehips for food, since they are tasty and can be eaten raw or made into jelly — just take care to remove the hairs inside the fruits first.