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[bargainsgirl]

We live in the northeast.  So about this time I am so ready to take the summer flowers out and put mums in a few places.  Hubby loves his flowers and likes to keep them till frost kills them.  That can be in November!  The kids used to complain at Halloween time cause the plants took away from decorations.LOL.

How long do you keep your summer plants in place?  

[spiderw]

I too live in the Northeast.  During the summer months and into early October, I would keep my  plants outside where they thrived.  Now I only put out a gardenia plant my niece gave me and it has been out since June.  I have been taking it in when dark because the past few days have been cool at night.  In fact this is about the time I would have my plants inside.  

[Lucky Charm]

I'm now in the mid atlantic (coastal) and just added some small sugar pumpkins to my huge planters of summer flowers.  I just set them right in there amongst the flowers and they look pretty.

About a month ago, I really weeded out the leggy plants (forgive me I have no idea what the names are of the annuals I put in these planters.)  But everything is purple.

I love the mix of purple and orange for fall.  I planted a few purple, black and orange ornamental pepper plants in them, also.

So it looks flowery, but it also looks like fall. 

[cindyNC]

I saw a craft on facebook a few weeks ago where you can spray paint dead mum plants and then decorate them for the holidays. 

[ValuSkr]

That's a good question!  The annuals still look good so I hate to take them out. On the other hand, their bright and cheery colors are looking out-of-place.  Everyone else has mums and I still have summer's annuals!  I usually compromise by pulling them out in late-September or early-October. 

My mother pulls annuals early only because they're easier to remove when the ground is still soft.

P.S.  I'm also Northeast.

[KathyM23]

We keep our summer flowers out until they no longer look good.  As far as summer flowers we still have impatients, verbena, portulaca and zinnas blooming and giant dalhias, some petunias and a few other colorful flowers.

My roses are doing great, more buds keep coming every day.  We have a daisy plant that was supposed to bloom in the summer, but it is just now starting to bloom.  The hollyhocks keep getting more blooms also, they are one of my favorites.

The fall purple asters are just going crazy, we have so many of them.  DH just put mums in the pots where summer flowers were and they are starting to bloom.  After the mum season, DH takes them out of the pots and plants them out back in what used to be my rose garden that is now a thing of the past.  The mums from last years pots planted out back are huge and doing great.  Mums are iffy, never know which are going to be hardy and which will only last a season.

[Grade1Teach]

I live on Long Island and I just took out my annuals yesterday.  I have all perennials planted in the ground of my gardens, so I had minimal annuals in pots to worry about.  However, they started looking a little scraggly and they were losing their luster, so I removed them.  I didn't feel badly about it this year either.  My geraniums and bounce impatiens/sunpatiens didn't do very well this year (I'm not sure why), so it was an easy choice to make.  They usually bloom well into November around here!

I have planters on my front stoop/steps, that I always put annuals in.  Those were removed and will be replaced with mums by tomorrow.  We're going apple picking upstate and the farmstand there always sells the most amazing mums. Can't wait!

[ninjawife]

I don't have any annuals in my gardens but a neighbor of mine has a beautiful array of annuals along her front walk.  I can't imagine removing all of them now.  If I were them, I would wait until they lost their luster.  

[chrystaltree]

I'm in Northeast too, when we had the big house I wanted to enjoy my summer flowers as long as mother nature allowed me to have them.  But I did put pots of Fall mums out on the porches.

[RedTop]

Mine are usually spent by September; only one pot was still thriving this month, but the mums took the primary spots and the other pot is on the porch.