Not Mums: The Fall-Blooming Plant With White Flowers That'll Beautify Your Landscape

When it comes time to plan your fall landscape, your first instinct may be to reach for mums (Chrysanthemum). Mums are a classic choice that can hold up well to the dropping temperatures while providing seasonal colors to the areas around your home, boosting visual appeal. However, they aren't your only choice when it comes to beautify your home's exterior this season. Instead, you can also incorporate this white flower that blooms through the beginning of fall.

Pringle's aster (Symphyotrichum pilosum var. pringlei) is a variety of aster native to North America. It's found throughout the eastern and central United States. As a result, given that most mums originate in Asia and Europe, these provide an eye-catching fall flower to beautify your landscape while keeping your garden full of native plants. Pringle's asters bloom from August to October, and they produce stunning white blooms similar to traditional aster species in appearance. Variety aside for the moment, asters are overall considered beneficial additions to landscapes. They're easy to grow, which makes them a good plant for beginner gardeners, and they attract a variety of wildlife, especially when you choose a native option like Pringle's aster. Because of this, you can also readily incorporate them when trying to start a pollinator-friendly garden for those late-season visitors.

As a perennial, it's important to pay attention to USDA growing zones if you're considering swapping your mums this year for Pringle's asters. The base species of Pringle's asters, the frost aster (Symphyotrichum pilosum) is hardy in zones 4 through 8. If you live outside of this zone and still wish to incorporate these fall-blooming white flowers into your landscape, you may wish to choose a container instead. Doing so allows you to move your asters indoors once the temperature starts to drop, saving them from harsh winter weather that would otherwise spell disaster.

As far as sunlight goes, Pringle's asters aren't too picky so long as they receive some direct sunlight during the day. This makes them perfect for incorporating along south-, east-, and west-facing locations in your landscape, so long as they receive either full or partial sun there. They're equally as tolerant of various moisture levels, handling both dry and moist soil with relative ease, which is also seen in the base species.

When growing these asters specifically to beautify your landscape, one of the most important things to keep in mind is size. They can grow up to 5 feet tall, which means that you'll want to choose the right spot for them among your other fall flowers. Given their height, they'd do better towards the back of a container or garden bed where they didn't hide the other plants included in your setup.