Fall is…well…almost in the air. It’s still too hot to break out the sweaters and scarves in most of the country, but it’s not too early to start planning your perfect autumn garden! With that in mind our intrepid trend spotters have pulled together a list of the top five trends you’ll be seeing this year. (So if you want to be ahead of the curve and have the Jones’s trying to keep up with you, work one or two of these into your fall plans.) Small is really big. Dwarf versions of your favorite shrubs are all the rage. Dwarf Nandina, Dwarf Yaupon Holly, and Little Henry Virginia Sweetspire are petite versions of classic landscape shrubs. This means they’ll fit into smaller urban gardens and are perfect in containers. Play with scale in your garden for some great effects. Many smaller shrubs in a large garden add dimension and interest and fill the space in a more dynamic and fresh way than a few oversized shrubs. It’s time to talk about the birds and the bees. No, no…not that talk. It’s time to rethink pollinators in your garden. Fall is the perfect time to plant flowering shrubs - and especially natives – that will provide plenty of food, forage and cover for the local fauna for winter. Try adding native coneflowers or Oakleaf Hydrangeas that will put on a beautiful fall flower show AND make your feathered furry and fluttering friends happy! Get hip with Hygge. The Danish have given the world some great things – insulin, Lego’s and fluffy, flaky pastries, to name a few. (Actually the Danish pastry comes from Vienna, via Denmark, but we’re not quibbling since we never quibble when our mouths are full.) But the most recent thing to cross the Atlantic is Hygge (pronounced hue-ga). This is the Danish idea of finding cozy contentment by enjoying the simple things in life. You’ll be seeing this idea used in gardens more and more frequently. Cozy garden ‘rooms’ with sweet-smelling flowers, burbling water features and snug seating areas are rolling off of designer’s drawing boards in droves. Which leads us to trend number 4. Get cozy around a firepit. Don’t wait for it to get cold to add a firepit to your garden. Do it now so that you can just bring out the cocoa, marshmallows and toasty blankets to enjoy the warmth of the fire while your neighbors try to build a firepit wearing mittens. Plant some lavender and garden mums to give your firepit color and fragrance. (As a bonus, toss a little bundle of dried lavender into the fire for a scented boost.) It’s time to consider losing the lawn. Use this great planting season to plan on un-planting the lawn and replacing it with easy-care, low-maintenance, drought-tolerant groundcovers like ajuga or sedum. The “lose your lawn” revolution is in full swing due to the excessive droughts of the last few years. Hop on board! If you plan well, you will be sipping iced tea next spring while your neighbor mows their lawn. We’re wishing you the best autumn ever and remember that NatureHills.com is here 24/7 to help you have the best garden ever!

No matter what you call this plant, you will find it a winner in all seasons. Amelanchier plants can be grown as large shrubs or smaller trees.

With so many different crabapples available today it is hard to know what to choose. Some of those old-fashioned crabapple varieties used to be wildly susceptible to apple scab and other diseases, to the point where the leaves would rain off the trees in August. The older selections also had fruit that was also large and fell to the ground in summer creating another mess. Those days of disease ridden, messy crabapple varieties are long gone, but not forgotten. Maybe you remember the old Hopa Crabapple from years ago? It was a huge grower with pink flowers, and once the flowers were done, it had no other attributes. Today, Nature Hills offers Crabapples of many types offering a myriad of flower color, leaf color, persistent fruit, and disease resistance. Crabapples are worth looking at once again!

Maybe you don't have a vegetable garden at your home, and maybe you don't want to add one now, but check this new idea out:  Include your favorite strawberry plants in your landscape as a ground cover plant. Beautiful glossy green leaves are just starting to grow in many parts of the country right now. Soon after they start growing their glossy green leaves, they make beautiful white flowers. The flowers come on hard and strong. Soon after the flowers, you will be picking the fruit.

Witch Hazel,  The Shrub You Didn't Know You Needed If you're ever disappointed that after the last flush of flowers in the fall, very little is thriving to get you through the winter months, despair no longer - there is a plant that blooms from October through December. Hamamelis virginiana- common witch hazel - is sure to be the star of your garden next winter.