Paint your garden with cool-season flowers - includes planting tips from professional gardeners - Special Issue: Fall/Winter Garden Guide

Sunset, Fall-Winter, 1994 by Micjael MacCaskey, Lynn Ocone, Lauren Bonar Swezey

How to grow: To ensure spring bloom, start with nursery transplants. Give full sun and light, fast-draining soil. Don't overwater.

Tips: Compact types are excellent for edging. Taller varieties make good cut flowers. Wee Willie sweet William (D. barbatus) grows to 6 inches, and Summer Beauty to 12 inches. Common D. chinensis hybrids are the Princess series (10 to 12 inches) and the Telstar strain (6 to 8 inches).

ENGLISH DAISY (Bellis perennis)

Perennials often treated as annuals. Pink, rose, red, or white double flowers 1 to 3 inches across bloom on 4- to 8-inch stems above rosettes of bright green leaves. Blooms from fall into spring, with fewer flowers in coldest months.

How to grow: Give good soil, much moisture, light shade inland, full sun near coast.

Tips: Good edging or bedding plant. Combines well with bulbs when interplanted.

FORGET-ME-NOT (Myosotis sylvatica, often sold as M. alpestris)

Tiny blue, carmine, or white flowers cover upper portion of 6- to 12-inch stems; leaves are soft, hairy. Bloom begins in late winter, early spring.

How to grow: Easily sown in place. Needs moist soil, partial shade.

Tips: Blues combine nicely with a warmer color such as coral, orange, or yellow. Attractive when interplanted with bulbs. Plants self-sow freely.

GLOBE CANDYTUFT (Iberis umbellata)

Bushy, free-blooming plants 6 to 15 inches high (depending on variety), with flattened globes of tiny flowers. Lance-shaped leaves to 3 1/2 inches long. Available in pastels (pink, rose, lilac, salmon, white) or intense shades of red and purple.

How to grow: Sow seed now or set out plants in late winter; plants are scarce in fall. Plants are heat sensitive and will stop blooming in hot weather, or if soil dries. Sun, partial shade inland.

Tips: Sow seed where quick color is needed. Good for edging, in rock gardens.

LARKSPUR (Consolida ambigua)

Upright branching plants 1 to 5 feet tall (depending on variety), with ferny foliage and dramatic bloom spikes. Delphinium-like 1- to 1 1/2-inch flowers in white, blue, lilac, pink, salmon, and carmine. Peak bloom in spring.

How to grow: Sow seed where plants are to grow or set out transplants. Chill seed for one week before planting. Best in fertile, well-drained soil. Partial shade.

Tips: Large (4- to 5-foot) strains such as Giant Imperial and Regal are good for middle and back of border.

NEMESIA (N. strumosa)

Small (3/4-inch) flowers in clusters 3 to 4 inches long and snapdragon shapes. Colors vary from bright jewel tones to soft pastels, including some bicolors. Plants from 7 to 18 inches.

How to grow: Frost-tender away from coastal areas. Cut back after first flush of bloom. Full sun.

Tips: Carnival and Funfair have intense colors. Tapestry combines pastels and deeper colors. 'National Ensign' is a red-and-white bicolor.

PANSY, VIOLA (Viola)

Pansies and violas (V. cornuta) come in many different color variations from plain to blotched. Pansies have large flowers 2 to 4 inches across; violas are about 1 1/2 inches. Johnny-jumps-ups (V. tricolor) are small (3/4-inch), normally purple and yellow bicolors. Plants grow to 8 inches.