I have a flower box (metal) on my front porch railing.

Mums are a beautiful fall bloomer! Buy the ones with lots of buds and only a few blooms so that the show happens on your porch instead of the nursery.

: )

Barb, it sort of depends on where you live. The area I'm in gets very cold for about three months out of the year and NOTHING blooms outside. Kim's idea of mums is great, they are beautiful. You would have to switch to some type of holly or evergreen if you have cold winters.

Depending on where you live, you can do fall folage . If you are like ma and live in a cold climate. Use artificial flowers or the garland sections. Make ornaments out of flower pots

you can buy small mums, add dried bittersweet, or Chinese lanterns, ornamental peppers, stick in a few small gourd/pumpkins. The fall festivals usually have some of the dried items. Then in the winter stick in some assorted fresh pines, they last a long time, with some pine cones and twigs, you can even paint some white on cones, spray paint twigs white, and add holly with red berries for color.

thank you for the suggestions

Mums would be great...or some time of evergreen that would give you some color. Don't rule out adding a few silk flowers to give it a pop of color if it isn't practical to grow live plants there through the winter as well.

Cabbage ,kale,depending on the depth and with,ornamental mullet,ornamental peppers

To me, Autumn always means Mums, marigolds and flowering kale and cabbage. Everything in shades of autumn : orange, yellow, red, dark green and brown. Good luck!

Thank you all so much for your suggestions. I will certainly implement some of the great suggestions.

Barb

You might try ornamental cabbage. It's not the kind you eat and it's a cold weather plant.

Dear Lulu - Love the cabbage idea. Do you think it will thrive in Canadian winters?

Thank you

I would try pansies, and lots of them. They can really take the cold and the snow.

Not sure where you live. My daughter (Canadian Prairies) has a planter and for fall decorates with artificial flowers. At Christmas, she changes the theme.

I was in the dollar store the other day and they had quite a selection of silk flowers in autumn colors. They were really bright colors and would liven up your flower box stuck in the left over dirt with maybe some other silk greenery.