My Favorite Perennials to Add to Dahlia Bouquets

Y’all know I love Dahlias but my second love is perennials! What’s not to like about plants that you plant once, give a bit of love once or twice a year and then enjoy their amazing show year after year!

There are some well known Fall perennials but I’ve been doing a lot of work over the years to find some more unique plants to add to my collection.

Sedum and Japanese Anemones are two of the most common autumn perennial choices but they are actually two of my favorites because they are so easy to grow.

Sedum is about as close as you will get to a plant it and forget it plant- drought tolerant, rarely bothered by pests, lasts forever in an arrangement, holds up out of water for days. I grow a couple of varieties but my favorite is still Autumn Fire (the darker version of the well known Autumn Joy). Really all you are looking for with sedums is enough stem length for a bouquet— just make sure the variety is at least 20” tall and you’ll be fine. They like full sun and you can easily create more plants by dividing every few years or propagating via rooting the leaves.

Japanese Anemones are a shade lover here in our warm climate- Partial sun. If you only have a full sun area you may get some sun scorch but as long as you give them plenty of water, they’ll still flower well. They tolerate our heavy clay soil very well- I think because the clay holds water and they prefer their roots to be cool. Once again, you want to look for varieties with a taller stem length- 22” minimum. There are single and double varieties in whites and various shades of pink. They are a bit shorter in vase life - harvest them once the first bloom is very mature and the secondary buds have begun to open.

Now- a few things that aren’t quite as common. There are several really good shrubs that make great cuts for bouquets and bloom/berry in the fall.

Snowberry is a new favorite for me. I had my first snowberry crop last year and I loved it. I’d plant 100 more bushes if I had room. Snowberries are a medium sized shrub that come in white and shades of pink. They flower in early summer and then those flowers fall off and begin to produce berries. They start off green and then turn either white or pink depending on variety. In my climate (7b), they are harvestable in September. This shrub is easy to grow, I was able to get a small harvest on my second year (I planted 2 year old plants) and deer don’t bother these!

Caryopteris- You’ve heard of this one I’m sure— but have you seen the new colors available? For years, caryopteris has been out there in various shades of blue/purple. But now there are white and pink versions available and even some lighter blues. Some of these new varieties are shorter so you definitely need to check flowering plant height before you buy. I grew Caryopteris Pagoda Blush two years ago and loved it! I was warned beforehand that it’s cold tolerance for our climate was marginal. And - that came true when we hit mid teens one weekend last March. So be forewarned that the newer varieties aren’t as cold hardy. But if you love blue, grab one of the older types (they are taller anyways) and add a new shrub to your garden.

Beautyberry is another great fall shrub. I can’t speak on growing it yet because we are just adding it this year.

Dusty Miller- We definitely need a perennial foliage. Dusty works great in spring and fall in my hot climate, hates the summer but always pulls it out by late fall. I grow mine in a hoop house because I’ve noticed far less disease issues if you keep the rain off it. Candicans is my favorite variety- this is the lacier type. But New Look is great too— more solid leaf type.

Mint- This is my other Fall favorite green (actually it works all season long). You want to make sure mint is mature when you cut it- the stem should feel fairly stiff about 5-6” from the top. It’s the type of plant you will need to trial a few times to get the harvest stage correct. Apple Mint is my personal favorite but most varieties of mint work well- just make sure they grow tall enough!

A few others that I wanted to mention- these aren’t necessarily “fall” perennials- more like all season perennials but I think they look especially good with dahlias. Agastache- comes in lots of colors now. The bold colors hold up well against the bold dahlia colors. Salvias- Same thing here- so many color choices. Agastache and Salvias work great because they will bloom once in the spring, you can cut back and sometimes get two more blooms before your first frost.
Clematis are another favorite. Most clematis bloom before dahlias but if you leave some blooms on the plant- you’ll get the awesome whirlygig seed pods. I think every fall bouquet should have some texture and these are my go to for adding texture.

Last but definitely not least if you haven’t jumped on the heirloom mum train yet— it’s time!

Heirloom mums are quite possibly the prettiest flower you can add to your dahlias. The colors are quintessentially fall! In my climate, they are perennial so I’m listing them here. But if they aren’t cold tolerant in your area, grab some mother plants and just root out your stock once a year. I’m not going into detail here about how to grow them because that’s another 10 blog posts probably. But you can’t have a list of fall perennials for dahlias without mums!