From Unsplash by Yoksel
It’s finally feeling a little bit like fall, and the shorter days are signaling to plants that it will soon be time to snooze. Bright fall colors, decrepit summer perennials, switching to bourbon at cocktail hour, and pansies on the shelves at the nursery are all signs.
But still plenty of action in the garden. Don’t forget you can use the dahlias with shorter stems to float in a pretty bowl with some water. Delicious. And you can have some dried beauty in your house by putting Hydrangea stems in just an inch of water and letting the water evaporate over the course of a week or two. As the Brits would say, it works a-treat!
Plant of the Week
The chrysanthemum, as sold in (half) spherical ubiquity at this time of year, is not something that I personally go for, but one of the many beautiful things about gardening is that there are no rules, and if you like them, I will leave them on the nursery shelf for you! Those round fellows do look pretty good in a classic urn, and if you have that urn in the shade, it takes care of my other charge against them, which is a disappointingly brief bloom time.
Now that I have registered my complaints, on to their many qualities! The chrysanthemum is an easy perennial, but depending on the cultivar, it can get the flops if it is not pre-pruned a couple of times over the summer. I employ ‘stadium’ style pruning (here’s an article I wrote for Fine Gardening Mag that shows it better): cutting the front of a patch severely, less so in the middle, and only a bit in the back. The stems become more stout and strong with the pruning, and this helps with support.
Colors span the entire color range and include the pumpkin spicy rusts and browns that evoke the season. They ask for nothing special in the perennial border except for their exuberance to be edited, easily done, and in pretty full sun. You don’t even have to do that pre-pruning bit, but it does help maintain order.
And speaking of pruning, check out what the real experts can do with them in these photos from the Longwood Garden Chrysanthemum Festival.
Guest
My little sister Sue Ann and I chatted this week about all things fall gardening. What’s growing, what’s going on by, what to do, and what not to do. And, there was talk of breaking the 10th Commandment—what is your neighbor growing that you covet?
Instead of plants, my goal is to improve the fall look in general by grouping a few fall bloomers together so the borders won’t look so spotty/dotty, which is what happens if a standout purple aster has nothing to play off of except green masses of perennials gone by.
Aster ‘Jin Dai’ flopping fetchingly by the stream.
Sue Ann wants to get started with some asters, and I can help, especially with the Aster tataricus ‘Jin Dai,’ which is getting a little out of bounds for me.
And the mums—the garden border is where I love them with their natural look, and since they are spreaders but easy to pull, I will put them on the list for her too.
The Play List
Order your bulbs (have you heard this one? :).
Divide and move perennials BUT only if they need it (dying out in the middle?) or you want to. You can NOT do that, or wait and do it anytime before the ground freezes.
Bring your indoor plants back indoors, (inspect, wash, get a saucer, don’t forget terra cotta absorbs water, so don’t put those on wood floors) and wait to listen to my chat with Marianne Wilburn for much more on that topic next week.
Start thinking about seed ordering.
Coffee, veg, and in that paper towel are crunched up egg shells. I do that to get them cooking— egg shells take a while to break down.
Think about your leaf removal this fall. Does your garden need to be neat as a pin? Can you or your landscapers adjust the volume/use rakes sometimes/leave the leaves on the gardens? Do get them off patios and the lawn, but think about your other spaces: what good habitat leaves make for nature, and how good they are for your soil. Also consider your eardrums and your neighbors’.
Compost tip: I don’t like ‘pets’ (fruit flies) in my kitchen, so I use a re-sealable half-gallon tub for all kitchen scraps except meat, as Ginny would not be so pleased without her tidbits. I have a bunch of these bins, so when full, I take them out to the garage to wait for me until I am in the mood to dump them into my tumbler. More next week…