The Fall To-Do...or not Not-To-Do List

It's the time of year when the flowers start fading and we see more and more...brown. But is the brown really that bad? At the Community Center I am looking to embrace the brown. 

Leaving the stems of fading flowers up does a number of beneficial services for the environment as well as adds winter interest. The seed heads of many plants in the garden provide food for wildlife. The gold finches came in groups of 4-5 in August and feasted on the seeds of Echinacea. Late summer is their typical breeding time due to the abundance of seeds this time of year, hence why we typically see so many of them around August. They are mainly granivorous (feed on seeds) and appreciate us leaving seed heads up for them! Learning more about birds is something i'd love to do in order to be a better gardener for wildlife. Leaving up seeds also lets the plants reproduce! This is a great way to let your garden evolve naturally. 

Our native grasses also produce seed that can be left up all winter and I LOVE to use grasses in plantings. Not only do they act as groundcover and provide year round interest but they are also wonderful habitats for wildlife and food for seed eating birds. I leave all warm season grasses such as Schizachyrium (little bluestem) up until March.

The bees appreciate the stems too. Around 30% of our native bees nest in stems of plants - typically the pithy (soft tissue) stems of many native perennials plants such as goldenrod, joe pye weed, mountain mint, and monarda.  The more hollow the stem the better as bees will move down horizontally. 

A good practice to help them out is to leave some stem!  

This is also where it is up to the gardener and what they think looks good. If stems are very unattractive you can cut back now to 6-24 inch if you don't like how it looks. Otherwise leaving more attractive stems up for winter interest and cutting back to varying heights between 6-24 inches in March is easy enough to do. Plants that don't leave interest or support bees can always be cut back to tidy the garden. 

Earlier in the year

The hollow stem of Joe pye weed

So what the heck is there to do then? Cut backs and removals can be done to any diseased or damaged plants. Monarda tends to get powdery mildew for example so they can go if they have it. 

 Fall is a great time for planting! The soil is still warm which helps with better root growth and typically plants experience less shock. However, this year it's be unseasonably warm and the month of October has been one of the driest in history making planting even a tough task this Fall. It's still an okay time to do so as long as you can keep plants watered as they root before we hopefully experience cooler temperatures. I've added plants to the sign bed at Sumneytown/202 and to Jenkins Parlor - can't wait to see them in the Spring!

It's also bulb planting time. I've been planting some but the majority will be going in the second week of November and on, when temperatures appear to be stabilized with lows consistently in the 40's - but who knows! This Fall has been a wild card and at some point I just gotta get the bulbs in. 

The risk of planting too early with such warm weather is the bulbs will have enough time to root (great we want this) but also even think it's time to send up some shoots. They can then become damaged by winter weather and leave not much for the Spring. Mulching them or planting deeper than normal could help mitigate this issue with the confusing weather but waiting longer would be better. I'm sure many people have gotten their bulbs in already as October and November are usually the best months to do so! Give them some mulch and fingers crossed we get some consistent weather soon! 

Lastly, it's a good time took look at your gardens and evaluate how well they did and if anything should be tweaked. Is there enough blooming in the Fall? What did well and what didn't do well? Should I add more of this or that? How can I fill any empty spaces? Was enough going on each season? This is a great reason to take lots of photos throughout the growing season or/and take notes. My notes contain many things: add more of this, move that, too dry there, add compost, etc etc.

 I take photos of the same gardens throughout the year to see how they progress. At Central I noticed the asters looked great in the Fall but was also pleasantly surprised to see Callirhoe involucrata (wine cups, purple poppy mallow) still blooming and looking amazing next to Symphyotrichum oblongifolium 'Raydon's Favorite' (Aromatic aster). It was a pairing I didn't expect but love!

Some progression photos are seen below. Spring/Summer and into Fall. There is always something going on which I am super happy about! 

Another example below of the sign bed at Meetinghouse. Overall I am really happy with how it turned out! Blooms throughout the year was the challenge using only perennials but I think the chosen plants were a success. The only issue was with the phlox that was continuously dug up by some critter. 

Did you get any of these Fall tasks done? Any bulbs you're super excited about? I know I can't wait for the Spring already - the life of a gardener! 

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**I've been working on this blog on and off for a few weeks and suddenly we are leaving Fall and going into Winter apparently! And we got an 1 inch of rain last night! **