If I had to pick a favorite season, my choice would have to be autumn. Cool, crisp mornings and warm sunny afternoons; occasional rains returning and bringing the earthy, welcome smell we call petrichor; and the opportunity to get out in the yard and reimagine gardens and containers for a new season—all these bring me almost as much excitement as the thrill of spring. With a new season upon us, here are a few gardening tips to inspire you in the month ahead.

First, early- to mid-autumn is just about the perfect time to plant shrubs, perennials, and trees in your yard. When planning a landscape, I like to incorporate plants that can provide interest throughout the year, particularly in the areas of flowering, foliage color, and evergreen structure. While spring is when most flowering shrubs and trees put on their show, fall is the perfect time to shop for foliage color and evergreen structure.

For fall color, two shrubs that earn high marks in my book for both their color and ease of maintenance are dwarf barberry and spirea. Although I love many varieties, ‘Bagatelle’ barberry is particularly showy with wine-red leaves in spring and summer that turn bright scarlet in fall. And although barberries have thorns, a dwarf like ‘Bagatelle’ will only grow to two to three feet tall and wide, requiring no pruning and only minimal interaction other than watering.

As with barberries, I struggle to choose a favorite spirea, but one of my top picks is ‘Goldmound,’ with pink blooms and bright yellow leaves in spring that age to a chartreuse shade in summer. In fall, the leaves turn back to gold with hints of orange, making it particularly showy against a backdrop of other evergreen shrubs or trees.

For evergreen structure, conifers come in an incredible range of textures, colors, and sizes, with many of today’s offerings slow-growing and dwarf to fit a low-maintenance lifestyle and smaller yards. Hinoki cypress come in a wide range of shapes and sizes, and I particularly love ‘Thoweil,’ a dwarf variety with deep green foliage and an irregular sculpted shape that grows to just six feet tall and two to three feet wide. For brighter color and incredible texture resembling fern fronds, check out ‘Fernspray Gold’ hinoki at Vander Giessen’s, which works well as a small-stature tree perfect for the corner of a house or anchor in a flowerbed.

Whatever you choose to plant, your timing is ideal: early autumn’s warm soil promotes rapid root development and helps your plants get established well before winter arrives, yet the cooler and shorter days minimize the energy expended on above-ground growth. Add to that the predictable return of regular rains later this fall to take over your watering duties and I can’t think a reason not to plant. When planting, further help your plants to make the transition into your garden by fertilizing with either Espoma Bio-Tone or Bonide Root & Grow, two excellent plant starters we carry at the nursery that will help ensure quick rooting.

In addition to planting permanent plants in flowerbeds, early autumn is an exciting time to refresh your containers and planters for fall and winter. By September even the best-tended flowers can look worn and tired. Take time this month to replant your containers with the classics like fall-blooming mums and winter pansies, which will bloom freely until early winter and then amazingly, will return to flowering again next spring. Add in hypericum with colorful berries and beautiful fall foliage, ornamental cabbage or kale for color into mid-winter, and ivy or creeping jenny to add some trailing interest. Whatever you plant, remember to fill your pots with more plants than you would in spring as the cooler fall weather slows down plant growth and many plants won’t grow much larger than they are now.

Finally, September is the perfect time to start your regimen of controlling poa annua in your lawn. Since poa—also called annual bluegrass—can sprout in autumn and lurk undetected in lawns until spring, pick up a bag of pre-emergent like Bonide Crabgrass Plus at the nursery and apply in the next couple of weeks as a helpful tool for preventing this unsightly grassy weed from getting established.

Truthfully, maybe my favorite season isn’t so much autumn as it is that unwritten season embraced by all gardeners: planting season. But with ideal planting weather and a fresh palette of plants to enjoy, what’s not to love about autumn? After all, something of a second spring sounds pretty good.