Now that we are well and truly in the thick of autumn, vibrant foliage, and cushion mums  abound….it is time to look at what others are doing to make their fall gardens so spectacular.

The interwebular connection gives you acces to all sorts of eye candy to help you figure out what to grow and how to grow it . Here are a few of my favorites.

Chanticleer: Although these two books about Chanticleer and their visionary garden designers should most definitely be on your shelf and be welll dog eared ,

the staff there also has  well managed social media including an instagram for the garden itself as well as a few from individual designers

chanticleer Instagram

Chris Fehlhaber

Austin Rae Elscheld

The fall garden there is nothing short of amazing and the accompanying accurate plant ID from knowledgeable plantspeople is a valuable thing indeed.

Others I follow that you are sure to love are Joseph Valentine ( of Juniper Hill Farm in NH), Kelly Norris, Page Dickey, Northwind Perennial Farm,  and really I could go on and on, but get on Instagram, follow the few I have listed here and then click through to their profile to see who THEY follow and then follow those people too. Then your daily scrolll through instagram will be filled with incredible inspiration to draw from,

Kathy Purdy of Cold Climate Gardening has a penchant for one particular fall interest plant, colchicums. You can check out her blog for loads of info on this underused  plant.

Another blog, May Dreams Gardens, hosts a monthly Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. if you read the post Carol puts up ,at the end of it will be links to MANY other bloggers who write a dedicated post on the 15th of each month detailing what is blooming in their gardens. A quick click on each link will tell you who is gardening  in a climate like yours and  you can make note of what you like.

Of course anything written by garden deity Piet Oudolf  will give you more information than you could ever use in designing a home garden.  He aslo has great social media presence and should be followed on any format he posts.

If you are itching to get out and about visit Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston Ma to see loads of well designed spaces and useful plants for multi season interest. Their Carey Award winners are all wood plants for our area that win that merit award based on just that.

Wave Hill, New York Botanial Garden, Coastal Maine Botanical  Garden, all worthy day or weekend trips this time of year , with notebook and camera in hand.

Note New York and Coastal Miane are BOTANICAL gardens while Tower Hill is just BOTANIC . This means nothing to our purpose, but I just find it confusing and kind of funny and wanted to point it out 😉

and of course, you always have me! You can search here for lots of photos and lists of what I grow for September through December interest, and if I ever forget to label just ask!!!!

 

 

Late  September though October is probably my favorite time in the garden.

sure, I love the peonies and their brief yet bombacious bloom time is the stuff of my winter dreams.

and the first flush of roses…..just as dreamy  , and even better when they explode along with the bulk of the early clematis

But it is at this time of year, when things are winding down, that I find it so much easier to walk about in the gardens and just enjoy. I know I have at least until the end of  November to clean up the garden for winter , and other than bulbs there is usually very little planting to be done. If something looks ratty it is A-Ok to just cut it back or rip it out as the time for tours is over and no one will see the hole except me.

( just a pause here to wonder why we stop garden touring when many gardens still look so fantastic )

With  fewer plants left that have yet to flower, it is a treat to see buds and anticipate things yet to come.

 

Now is not the time  fret over slugs or fungus, now is not the time to plan , now is the time to just look and appreciate a season well grown.

 

lablab purpurea or hyacinth bean vine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are many shrubs here I grow for their berries, not all have late season ineterst though. Viburnum, for evxample , has lovely berries, in some species berries appear early on the in summmer and some late, but ALL get eaten by the birds as soon as they ripen .I have seen viburnums planted ( usually en masse) that keep berries longer but here they are gone in a flash. therefore they do not qualify for this post.

Other berries and fruits need to go through frost and thaw cycles to become palatable for the birds to snack on ,some remain bitter and are eaten only when the birds  are very very hungry, and it is usually those that give us garden interest in the fall.

Reminds me of when I was little and my mother would go to the grocery store on Saturdays. All the good snacks, like fresh fruit, or  that little yogurt cup you tipped upside down and pierced the bottom with a fork so  the fruit on the bottom would become the topping like an ice cream sundae, would dissappear immediately and by Wednesday you were reduced to snacking on graham crackers . These berries are the graham crackers of the bird world.

Anyway here they are in no partiular order

Snowberry/Coral Berry: Symphoricarpos  (spcs) are deciduus shrubs that grow naturally all over the northern parts of the Us and Canada, The are not only very hardy, but they tolerate just about any conditions you can throw at’em. Moist woodland? check. Sunny and dry ? check. Dry shade ? check.Wherever they are  growing they will be smothered in tiny flowers that the beees love all summer, and the in the late summer and into fall they produce chubby little drupes or berries  that are eaten by mostly mammals as opposed to birds ( although grouse and pheasants eat them). Over time they will sucker and form a little thicket that most certainly does not require your attention, and you almost forget it is there until the berries appear. Breeders have been using this old fashioned back door shrub to cross and get plants that produce berries of brighter color and bigger size and the result is plants like Amethyst Coral Berry ( symphoricarpos x dorenbossii) and the yet to be relaesed Proud Berry Coal Berry (coming in 2017.)

I have been growing Symphoricarpos albus ( white berries) here for many moons and i is often asked about on tours because people remember it from their grandmother’s garden yet never knew what it was or where to find it. I added Amethyst Coral Berry a few years ago  and have been pretty happy to use it in lots of fall floral arrangements since.

Next up is beauty berry, other wse know as callicarpa (spcs). I grow callicarpa dichotoma ‘Early Amethyst’ ( apparantly amethyst is a popular plant name now)  because I find the shrub itself to be a little more capable of fitting in my landscape than some of the larger ones. They can be sort of wild and rangy looking, so be warned.  The berries on Early Amethyst are smaller and in tight clusters, it also blooms a little earlier than the other species.   The berries are metallic purple and are virtually ignored unti after mid-winter. they look phenomenal covered in snow.

 

Last for berries  is a fall favorite, Ilex vercilliata ‘ Winter Gold’. This shrub I adore due to the fact that has the easy care of a holly, yet it’s berries are a goldy-orange that go perfectly well with all things autumn…….fading foliage, bronzy grasses, and pumpkin spice anything 😉 . The red berried hollies are just fine, but I prefer those in winter and snow. This 5-8 ft shrub is another I never pay any mind to , even in this drought, until the berries appear and light up the back 40. Once the robins descend it will be stripped in a matter of hours, but that is usually aafter December or even into the new year.

For seeds heads, I ALWAYS leave those from any rudbeckias for the goldfinches, and it is the picture of birds perching on them ,swaying and eating ,that make them valauble to the fall garden.

 

For clematis know this: a general rule is that the smaller the flower, the better the seed head.  Clematis tangutica  and orientalis ( let’s not get into a discussion of the taxonomy here harumph) , , in particular have great seed heads that persist after frost .

 

 

seedhaeds of ‘Bill Mckenzie’

 

Look for ‘Bill McKenzie’, ‘Helios’  and a favorite here,’My Angel’ .Keep in mind these are large vines with a penchant for seeding about in warmer climes,

ps remeber when I made an entire wreath of clematis seedheads?

You have many many more options of things to try for berries and seedheads: rose hips, acnanthus, mountain mint, ornamental grasses just to name a few. When you are planting any type of plant ,a little research into what they do AFTER they flower is always helpful when planning the best fall garden ever.

Next up is Places to Vsist for Inspiration for your BEST FALL GARDEN EVER

well,mostly….. but not really.

Annuals are a plant form that starts as a seed, grows roots and leaves, then flowers and fruits and dies , all in one year. many of the plants we grow here as ‘annuals’ are actually herbaceous perennials in the warmer parts of the world. We grow them through one season then usually compost them, BUT  with the knowledge  they are indeed non-hardy perennials we are  able to overwinter choice plants indoors and save $$.

A few that fall under this annual yet perennial heading that may be worth saving are  are petunias, coleus, and persian shield.

But let’s start with plants that are easy to grow from seed, fabtabulous bloomers, and  then headed for the compost bin.

Cosmos and zinnias make huge impacts in the late season garden Both are available in many heights and colors, both can be started from seed by even the most inexperienced grower, both flower profusely  and do so until frost if deadheaded routinely. Ths year I focused on many different cosmos and didn’t even grow any zinnias ( a decision I now regret)   . They cosmos though, are  getting going after some nice rain and are  just the perk the garden needed now.

Verbena bonariensis is a very tall see through plant with strong  stems and a profusion of small purple flowers .It works well when let to seed in between other plants , which it will relaibly do every year once you have planted it for the first time. Butterflies adore it,. I want to add that for some people this plant can reseed quite vigorously and down south it is actually escaping cultivation , but here is easy to thin and control. ( photo :Annies Annuals)

petunias often get looked down upon by experienced gardeners, but I say what’s not to like?

They bloom like crazy,

if they get leggy or even if you forget to water them , you can give them a haircut and they will spring back to life

very few pests bother them, here the rabbits leave them alone and only occaisionly I get tobacco worm caterpillars I need to pick off

if you don’t like the commercialized ones, there are many you can grow from seed. I have talked about petunia exserta here before. It is a lovely red that is hummingbird pollinated and again, super easy to start from seed

This year I have added some from the Sparkler seed mx and they are going like gangbusters

and every year I have many self sown pink ones that fill containers for me everywhere. They will tolerate quite a bit of cold and persist very very late into October.

Amaranth is another plant I start from seed and there are so many I try new ones every year.

This year I am growing tri-colored amaranth both in the ground and in containers

coral amaranth

 

and I also tried one called ‘Deadlocks” which is doing  horribly and I don’t know why.All the plants are very small and they look more like goofy  drumsticks. I am hoping they get going soon

Now onto ones you may want to  winter over.

For foliage you can’t beat coleus, and the varieties available  to us now are outstanding. After the season you can take cuttings to root in soil or water and overwinter , or   hack them back and grow them on indoors. I had one pruned into a tree form for years but lost it this winter .

Persian Shield or stobilanthes dyerianus is beautiful but can be pricey , so ,again, overwintering a cutting or two can save you lots. ( it is a very easy to grow houseplant as well)

Plectranthus ‘Mona Lavender’ is a garden and  houseplant that blooms in the fall and winter and really comes into it’s own as days get shorter. It has the added bonus of flowering in shade ( photo from pinterest)

caladium bicolor is a bulb often grown as an annual . Tthe emerging plant ,although it loves full sun, will perform very well as a foliage filler in almost full shade. It is planted in this container with nasturtiums and another bulb , eucomis. I bring the pot in and let it either go dormant or sometimes keep it leafed out depending on window space

Hypoestes phyllostachya is another lovely shade foliage plant that delivers a punch of color all through the growing season. There are many color variations out there, and this guy also will prform well as a houseplant

An interesting plant( although be aware the seeds are very poisionous) is castorbean  or ricinus communis . Where it is hardy it is a massive perennial shrub but here it is grown as an annual.
Super easy to start from seed, this dangerous baby will shoot to 9 feet with tropical plamate leaves and colored stems  . There are many purple and dark  leaved varieties available  and the fuzzy fruits are really cool too. It makes a very useul filler in the garden and will certainly elicit some response to both folaige and fruit, as well as the  story of how it is where the nuerotoxin ricin comes from

I am growing three different ones ths year , none are flowering yet so the second photo is from Annies Annuals and the cltvr is ‘New Zealand Purple’ Talk about drama!

i have read that it takes 3-4 seeds to kill a rabbit I just can’t figure out how to make them eat them lol

slavia ‘Wendy’s Wish’ is a non stop bloomer that the hummingbirds love and has quite the presence in the garden right through to frost. I have overwintered this successfully  inside as well

I think these days many gardeners dimiss  the use of annuals as beginner stuff and look past them to perennials and shrubs, but  we can add loads of interest to our garden by adding in a few non-hardy plants . You may be able to find some interesting choices at a nursery near you, or you can cheaply order seed from Plantword, Chilterns, ebay and amazon.com  to name just a few

For plants , a  source I ALWAYS reccomend is Annies Annuals who has very interesting choices and does a superb job at shipping. Their catalogue is fun to look at and always gets lots of post-it-notes added here during the winter.

 

Since i am so busy in the garden, this is a good week for the shortest of these posts, trees.

Trees for late season are easy in New England. So may of our deciduus trees having brilliant fall color and are a little bit of a no-brainer. BUT there are a select few we can plant that add something else besides foliage.

To top the list is heptacodium miconiodes, or seven- son- flower. This small tree  , which will grow 15-20 ft ,has beautiful smooth bark which exfoliates during the winter, a good reason to keep it limbed up for viewing, although you can grow it as a multi stemmed tree if you like. It has a nice branch structure , and in the late summer is absoutely smothered with white lightly scented star shaped  flowers, seven from each bud ,hence the name . After the petals drop,  what remains are very small fruits surrounded by cherry red calyces which most certainly add some drama to the garden.(photo from Bluestone Perennials)

It will live in full sun or dappled shade making garden placement easy.

Another small tree variety  to include is  disease resistant crabapples for their fruit display. A few favorites are ‘Tina’ which has very brightly colored fruit and stays very small ( under 10 ft), ‘Mrs. Robinson’ with it’s dark leaves and darker fruit, and’Prairie Fire’ which also has dark purple leaves, good fruit display and all have outstanding resistance to apple scab. Crabapples are highly ornamental from early spring bloom right through winter and  if you have room an allee of them would be spectacular.

For fall color  i will just add only my three top picks

amelanchiercanadensis ‘Autumn Brilliance’  or service berry, another fantastic small tree that offers  spring bloom, summer fruit  birds love , and intense red fall color on the leaves all while asking very little  in return. It is an easy to grow native , full sun to part shade and very resiliant in drought here.

although this ia a biggie-to 40 ft, nothing beats parrotia persica, which appears aflame in October especilally when  planted in our acidic soils.(photo from greatplantpickscom which is a suberb resource for discovering garden worthy plants.

Bookmark it for those boring rainy days,

 

and sweet gum, or liquidambar styraciflua, which can get large , but is a highlight of any garden when the colors change in cooler weather. It is the only one on the list I don’t ( yet) grow , but it is on my radar as a replacement for a tree we are taking down in the next few years

today we are getting the very first rain of July, it is beyond dry here, despite irrigation the ground throws up puffs  of dust every time I pull a weed  . Wroking in the garden  I remember  haunting  pictures of forlorn farmers in desolate barren landscapes , clouds of dust in the air. Having studied that era of our history in a class in college,those images have forever been seared into my memory, Draught is serious business, and it is scary to think how little control we have over it and other disasterous weather.

Happier thoughts!  Tommorow  is an Open Day here and I do love company, so stop by if you can.

What fun it is that today we get to talk about long blooming plants. You have lots of choices regarding the plants you pick to grow, and a little time spent thinking about which ones get to live on your land can reap great rewards

When you go to the nursery to buy something, say a rose, you can choose one based on many factors; bloom time, fragrance, growth habit etc.

Now, we are going to talk about what are called remontant , or re-blooming roses when we talk about shrubs, but for today our focus is long blooming. So immediately you steer away from old fashioned once blooming roses, that are divine, but not the goal here, and you look for ones that may not be as voluptuous  or fragrant, but meet this criteria. It is hard to do , trust me. So many delights in front of you , yet I am asking you to narrow your search. And not just with roses , but with everything. Get it?

So we begin.

I adore honeysuckle, I have a few that I could stare a all day with lovely cream and white heavenly scented flowers. Sigh, I miss them already, why? because  they are done for the season. Then there is lonicera sempervirens ‘Major Wheeler’ . The Major has smaller red  blossoms that lack any fragrance, but it comes into bloom in late May and I will still be cutting flowers from it in December. That is a long time my friends. So , for the criteria of long blooming? A winner and a great hummingbird plant as well.

Now , since we were talking of them before, let’s pick a rose. You can knock the konockouts all you want, but for long blooming the double pink   wins above all others. It self cleans ( drops it own petals) and just keeps throwing out flower after flower after flower.No down time at all  Here it is in the SNOW!

I have profiled Verbena ‘Annie!’ here before.  Blooms and blooms and blooms save for the very few humid weeks in August when it may take a short break, then it is back at it until frost.

The clematis ”Betty Corning ‘ blooms here for a straight 18 weeks. Yes, I said 18 weeks. That is just incredible. No deadheading needed with this one either.

Blanket flowers, or gallardia, don’t start until summer is really here and the heat is on, but then they will go on even after the first few frosts take many other things out. I do trim these guys and cut off the spent flowers ocassionally so they don’t get too leggy, small price to pay for the weeks and weeks of flowers I’d say. It is pictured here with gentian.

The secong longest blooming clematis is ‘Roguchi’ .This one is non-climbing, and easy to grow in conatiners or in the ground and is a blooming machine.

Astrantia major and it’s many cultivars, , with it’s lovely bracts and umbel of small flowers will carry on all the way through summer and fall . It can be grown in shadier conditions and only asks for a little water for all the joy it gives back. (photo from gardenweb.com)

 

Most of the groundcover geraniums , often called cranesbills, get hacked back after bloom to prevent leggy yellow stems and leaves and encourage a small rebloom. Not geranium ‘Rozanne’. She just keeeps weaving through the garden , blooming and blooming , not a care in the world. Part sun is a-ok with them too.

Many botanic gardens have interns and staff that run tests of plants to determine garden performance. You can spend time searching around their websites to see the results . Chicago Botanic Garden did a study on garden phlox a few years ago and determind the following varieties to be very long blooming

phlox ‘Flieddertraum’ early Aug to Nov

p. ‘Empty Feelings’ early July to early Oct

p. ‘Frosted elegance’  mid July to early October

p. ‘Midnight Feelings’  early July to early Oct

p. ‘Shortwood’ mid July to early Oct
I don’t know about you, but I might hesitate to plant something named ‘Empty Feelings’, but am on board with the “Midnight Feelings ‘ for sure.

Dahlias, although they may be tender here, are certainly worth wintering over in the basement for the length of their bloom. Started in pots in the house, mine start to bloom by the end of June and will go non-stop until hard frost

i always make sure to grow a few  in decorative pots so they can be brought into the garage for the frst few frost. Often the weather is actually very nice in October save for a few spotty nights when good ol’jack visits .  If the pots are inside at night they will be spared and can enjoy Indian Summer still flowering.

This is by no means a comprehensive list of long bloomers, matter of fact it barely scratches the surface. Each and every plant has varieties that bloom for extended periods of time and are worth growing for that reason alone. When you have decided to plant something from an astillbe to a yarrow, take a little extra time to see if you can’t find information on cultivars that bloom longer and then add those to your mix. every second you spend doing so ( which is now unbelievably easy online and a great way to occupy a snow day)will pay off big time in your best fall garden ever.

Next week is Containers planted for late season interest

 

There are so very many things I should have been doing garden-wise these past few weeks….getting fallen leaves off the plants in the rock garden, cutting back lots of dead  ugly stuff, raking , planting bulbs for spring display, putting away the gardenalia that can’t take our winters etc.  but really, I could care less. It feels too early to be putting the garden to bed so in protest I am not.

i wish I could say I have been doing fun and interesting things instead, but alas, Wil hurt his back and Faith has been undergoing some medical treatment that has kept me quite busy transporting patients too and fro while also  managing work and homelife . Kind of been a big bummer ,but we certainly have been through worse.

I hope next week to fit in planting the big box of bulbs that has been sitting in my office and tidy the front a little. I gave up on even trying to manage Halloween decorations, not even a single jack-o-lantern to be seen , so at least I won’t have to deal with the dreaded clean up ( in years I have gone whole-hog I certainly regretted it on November 1st) but if the weather holds I will get the winter lights up ( though NEVER lit until December) and maybe get some containers all decked out for winter too.

I have a few photos of some arrangements , I have been steadily plugging along at my goal to keep arranging until my 52 weeks are up on the Slow Flower Challenge and the biggest issue has been taking the photos believe it or not.

If the light is not good for photography when I make them , sometimes, well most of the time if I am honest, I just never get back to it. These last weeks of October and into November chrysanthemums are the stars and that is what is in these two. I also adore the foliage of the viburnums and although we have had many nights below freezing the foliage on a few shrubs, like the buddleias, still looks good.

The first is simple viburnum, buddleia and the just opening Copper Penny mum

This one is Sheffield mums, dara ( which is in it;s pot growing in the kitchen having been rescued from frost as I can’t get enough of it!) , heuchera leaves from ‘Magnum’ and calicarpa berries, and cardoon leaves which look fresh as ever despite the cold.

Using the same foliage, and mums, I added ilex ‘Winterberry Gold’ berries, rose hips and a branch of red twig dogwood for this little traveler that will go with us to a friends house tonight.

..and just as a reminder to myself to stop sulking that the season is over and to focus on the fact that it is time to  get moving  a  little throwback if you will to Halloween 2011 when we were hit by a heavy wet snow storm making clean-up a nightmare.,

 

we have been very lucky weather wise not to have suffered a hard frost…don’t worry it is coming , and soon, but for now the garden just keeps carrying on. I have read the phrase “pockets of beauty” ad nauseam for some reason these past few weeks  in reference to what is left to see our gardens…BAH! …Fall is glorious with color!

there are so very many late blooming plants that can bring us from the end of the summer  all the way into December here in New England and they should be a part of every garden in a place where we have snow cover for months.  Paired with the turning foliage of peonies,geraniums, many shrubs and of course our deciduous trees ,the garden is so vibrant now , add in the low light and great weather and it is paradise! 

there are late season mums and asters

loads of shrubs and trees that have beautiful berries and fruit

 

rose hips and reblooming roses

sedums and hydrangeas

long and  late season annuals, many of which you can see below in the vases I put together for a presentation today

the late blooming montauk daisy, gentian  and the long blooming garden phloxes

fall anenomes

apples and pears on the trees and on the ground

persicaria and alluim thungbergii ‘ozawa’ ( with sedum and gentians)

and then there are those plants like geranium ‘rozanne’, verbenna ‘annie’ and every agastache on the market, as well as the honeysuckle ‘major wheeler’ that bloom for such a long time that I can almost ( but not quite yet) say i am sick of them!

Still yet to come are a half dozen more perennial mums that are still in bud and won’t be harmed by frost at alll!

below is a look at everything I cut today for a presentation on shrubs …the flowers are just a bonus in addition to the beauty of the branches that are the base of the arrangements

.The last one was made  just for me though ( i really really really like pink)

How does your late garden look? I’ll bet there is more color  to it than you  other people think!

head on over to see what is going on elsewhere and for tons of inspiration at May dreams gardens