Keep these stunning annuals in mind for your own late-summer display next year

It started several weeks ago, with the first night the temperature dipped into the 60s.

Trees and shrubs began to take on their first blush of fall color — the result of a combination of cooler weather and longer nights (some plants measure the length of the daily "dark period" to determine when it’s time to bloom).

That’s why mums, morning glories and many of our fall-flowering wildflowers bloom at this time.

Some of our most stunning annual color displays show up in outdoor flower and foliage beds from late September until the first frost. It’s too late for planting them this season, but keep your eye on the great colors now, then include them next time around.

Firebush. This is a wonderful 18-inch foliage and flowering annual (not a shrub, as its name might imply). Its leaves are coppery-green all summer, but they shade to an overall rich orange-red in the fall. The plants come into full flower for the final 10 weeks of the growing season. Their tubular salmon-orange blooms act as hummingbird magnets. Everything about this plant reaches its zenith in fall.

Copper plants. We’ve grown them for decades, but they’re less common now than they ought to be. These 3-foot, bold-textured annuals have rust-colored leaves all summer. When it turns cooler, those same leaves darken by several shades as they take on the colors of molten metals. There aren’t showy flowers on these plants, but no one seems to miss them. Use copper plants, in one or more of their forms, as backdrops to your other annual color.

Joseph’s coat. There are several forms, most falling within the 12- to 18-inch size. Most have green leaves in the summer that meld into shades of red, orange, rust, copper and yellow — all on the same plant — when temperatures drop into the 50s and 60s. They’re useful as annual borders, also stirred into perennial plantings. A maroon variety and a yellow-green variegated type are also sold.

Marigolds. Everybody grows marigolds, but try to find a planting that’s still around from the spring. Most times, spider mites wipe the plants out by the middle of the summer. If you can find a survivor, take a look at its rich orange or yellow tones. You can plant marigolds in mid-August and bypass the mites. Buy budded transplants. Those that are in bloom at the time of planting often stall out and fail to develop.

Zinnias. Anyone who has grown zinnias in the North has probably wondered what happens to them here by the middle of June. Powdery mildew usually ruins the plants by then, and the colors are pale compared with what those gardeners were used to in the cooler evenings in the North and Midwest. But, following the marigold philosophy of planting in mid-August, fall zinnias are absolutely beautiful. Again, buy plants in bud, not in bloom.

Celosias. You’ve never seen richer reds than on these plants in late September and October. Where they had reddish-green leaves in late spring and early summer, fall cockscombs are maroon all over, from the leaves to the massive flower heads. The old, reseeding types seem even more stunning.

Hyacinth bean. This looks just like a variety of pole bean. Its leaves are a match, and so are the flowers and even the pods. However, this is an ornamental type that’s grown for the color it brings to a fence or arbor. It really doesn’t start blooming until the first days of fall. Then, as if by magic, all the other parts of this plant transform into Aggieland maroon. If you see a vine that matches that description, you’ll see why gardeners since Thomas Jefferson have counted on it year after year.