Focus on Flowers

In Autumn, not only do the colors in the garden seem richer and more mellow, but textures also assume a more dominant role in plantings.

The tall sedums become focal points in the perennial beds with their intricate flower heads and fleshy leaves. The flat shape of the flower heads makes perfect platforms for bees and butterflies.

Trees, such as Japanese maples, and shrubs, such as Smokebush and Ninebark, add the darker notes to the symphony of leaf colors, and vines such as Sweet Autumn clematis contribute the lighter notes of their seed heads. 

All types of Salvia flowers, but especially the blue ones, seem to look more vibrant in the fall light.

Annuals such as Nicotiana, Cleome and Gomphrena, provide a variety of flower and leaf shapes and textures, and of course there are so many seed heads and berries for the birds to enjoy. 

The tall, airy Russian Sage and the perennial Asters and Chrysanthemums carry the bloom across the garden against a tapestry of contrasting foliage and branching patterns provided by the woody plants. The Burning Bushes glow. Even the fuzzy wooly thyme, the gray felted Lambs Ears and the herbs in the Kitchen Garden are integral parts of Autumn’s textural display.

Most of our flowering plants are past their prime in fall, exhausted after their exuberant earlier displays. As we walk around our gardens, we notice all those brown stalks we need to remove from the daylilies, and lots of spent plants with shabby foliage that needs cutting back.

Aggressive perennials, such as monarda and black-eyed Susans may have increased to the point where we will have to get rid of some. If the soil isn’t too dry, excess monarda can be pulled quite easily.

Perennials that have grown into over large clumps, such as iris, goldenrod, and coneflowers, can be divided with a spade and given new homes in other locations, be shared with friends, or be consigned to the compost pile.

Take a good long look at your garden and think about how you want it to be next year. 

Think of color in terms of foliage as well as bloom, and what you can add to create a more pleasing effect. Maybe more height, perhaps plants on a trellis or arbour, could be added next year? 

Fall is a season of promise for gardeners who can envision new possibilities. As Victor Hugo said:

The autumnal equinox occurs during the third week of September. It is the time when the sun crosses the equator making day and night of equal length on all points of the earth. After the equinox in Autumn, the days grow shorter. 

In September we stop fertilizing plants, but we continue deadheading our fall bloomers, as we want flowers to continue coming until frost. The purpose of cutting off the spent flowers is so the plant won’t produce seeds. Once seeds are set, a plant shuts down because it has completed its primary purpose, which is to reproduce itself. 

When we deadhead, we snip the spent flower off right above a leaf axil where the topmost leaves join the flower’s stem. When deadheading roses, cut just above a group of five leaves on the stem, as this stimulates the development of new growth. 

Carry a bucket around the garden to collect the flower heads as you cut them off the plants. Then set the bucket of spent flowers in a cool dry spot out of the sun, and when the flowers are completely dry, place them in an airtight container and add some fixative such as orris root to which you have added a few drops of perfumed essential oil available at hobby shops. Your potpourri will be then ready to use this winter.

Chrysanthemums have been grown and hybridized for many centuries it is difficult to determine their parentage. It seems though, that they originated in China. 

Confucius wrote of them in 500 BC. The ancient Chinese valued plants for their symbolic and moral associations, and the chrysanthemums which blooms in autumn, when other plants are dying off, was esteemed as a life-prolonging herb. 

Chrysanthemums went to Japan in the fourth century and became its national flower. They were introduced to Europe in 1688 and arrived in America in 1798.

Pots of flowering mums are now widely available for fall planting in our gardens for an instant display of autumn color. Not all will survive, however, because these flowering transplants may not have time for their roots to settle in before winter.  Those that do, should be pinched back the next spring and summer to keep them compact, and fertilized to maintain their vigor. They need a sunny spot and regular watering but should not be in soggy ground.

Their variety of colors is glorious and their flower shapes include pom pom, spider, daisy, and spoon.

If you want mums to be reliably perennial in your garden, look for small plants next spring and pinch and feed them through mid July. You will then have bushy plants strongly rooted in your garden for bloom next fall and for years after.

Greek frescoes from the second millennium B.C. show what is believed to be the earliest known representation of a rose. The name, according to legend, is because a woman of exquisite beauty, Rhodanthe, was turned into a beautiful rose.

Roses grew abundantly in medieval gardens where the rose petals were compressed to make rosaries.

Roses have been loved since antiquity, and today there are countless species, hybrids and cultivars represented in the genus "rosa." Those with the showiest blossoms are often difficult for the weekend gardener to grow. However, one polyantha rose "The Fairy" is low maintenance, and therefore an excellent choice for home gardens.

It blooms throughout the growing season with clusters of small pink flowers which though they are not perfumed, last well in a vase. It can be planted in the spring or fall, preferably in full sun, though it will tolerate light shade.

It prefers moist but well drained soil with plenty of compost mixed in. It is a low spreading plant and needs about an inch of water each week.

Each spring prune off any dead canes, and fertilize monthly until august. This is a lovely informal rose bush that rewards your minimal attention to its needs, with a luxuriant and continuous display of flowers.

The name "gladiolus," is from a Latin word meaning "little sword" because of the shape of the plant's leaves. They grow from corms, which are planted flat side down, two inches apart and at least 4 inches deep. They look best if planted in clumps rather than rows, and they must have full sun.

The vertical flower spikes that open from the bottom up are used by florists to provide height in large formal arrangements. They have been hybridized extensively to produce all colors except blue.

A wild miniature variety was found near the Victoria Falls in Africa. The plants grew where there was spray from the falls and the local people called it the "The Maid in the Mist." Although this is not substantiated, some believe that gladioli were "the lilies of the field" that Jesus spoke of in the Sermon on the Mount, for they grew wild in the Holy Land.

Gardeners in mild climates find them to be perennial, but in colder regions, the corms must be planted every year. It is best to leave some foliage on the plant when the blossoms are cut, so that food can be stored in the corms for the next year's growth. They can be dug in the fall and stored in paper bags for replanting the next spring.

I am lucky to have a large garden space and so I have the luxury of being able to dedicate some of my beds to a single perennial species.

Dianthus, alone in a small bed, can be pretty as the foliage is neat and forms a weed- suppressing mat above which the pretty, little flowers are held aloft.

I have a bed of only pure white German iris that I love for its purity and conformity. And one year my pink Japanese anemones took over a whole bed on the side of my yard, outside my fence, so I just let them have it. The foliage is neat and suffocates most of the weeds, and in bloom, that bed is a sea of pink and looks like the garden of a princess.

In some of my other beds, more by happenstance than design, I have let different but equally vigorous plants duke it out. Monarda, commonly known as bee balm, nearly engulfed the other perennials in one bed, but now when it has bloomed, I just pull it all out after a rain so the roots come out easily. There is always lots left to return the next year. The wild asters and golden rod then fill in for a fall display without any more work on my part.

Around my fountain, where the water splashes and the soil remains wet a lot, I have Japanese, Siberian and Louisiana iris that enjoy moisture. They bloom at slightly different times, which adds to the appeal, as does the fact that all of the blooms are in purple/lavender shades, and they seem to float above their clean erect foliage.

In her book The Once and Future Gardener, Virginia Clayton provides examples of articles that were published in popular American gardens magazines between 1900 and 1940. One article by Helen Wilson focused on spire-like flowers. She also called them "steeped flowers" evoking the image of a church steeple pointing heavenward in an English village.

In high summer in our gardens, we can use red-hot poker flowers, sometimes called torch lilies, to provide erect spikes. They are members of the Lily family and their botanical name is Kniphofia.

These perennials like full sun and moisture, but must have good drainage, especially in winter. Cut the flower stalks to the ground after blooms fade and cut the foliage back when it looks unkempt.

They rarely need division, but off-sets can be cut from the sides of the clumps in the spring. The two feet wide plants grow up to four feet tall when in bloom. Many cultivars are available, most in hot colors.

Wilson wrote that the artistic placement of spire plants is an intriguing game. One must keep the width of the bed a little greater than the tallest possible spire. Otherwise the spires appear precariously placed. However, if plants are strategically placed, the gardener, like a master builder, can draw eyes towards heaven.

I recently admired a beautifully planted curbside garden in full sun with a lovely color palette. Right in front were lavender creeping phlox, and behind those was the low-growing cranesbill geranium ‘Rozanne' and low-growing perennial salvias with purple flowers. Behind these low-growing plants were taller Russian sage with its grey foliage and blue/lavender blooms. They were interspersed with Caryopteris ‘Lil Miss Sunshine', which has chartreuse foliage and blue flowers. It blooms mid-summer to mid-fall and grows 2-4 feet tall and as wide.

If winter interest was desired in a planting such as this one, small evergreens with yellow foliage could be substituted for the Caryopteris sub-shrubs that die to the ground each winter.

One of the advantages of this garden just described is that it is low in height in the section that abuts the street. The color scheme with the contrasting chartreuse and purple/lavender/ blue hues ties it together, and the plants selected ensure that there will be flower and foliage interest from early spring right through into fall.

Purple and chartreuse always look good together in a garden. Some other taller plants, such as the shrub Sambucus ‘Lemony Lace' shrub, could be placed in a moist part of your yard with purple Siberian Iris and a sedge such as ‘Banana Boat'.

Moya Andrews talks about euphorbias.

The genus Euphorbia is large—about 2000 species—and there is great variation between forms. 

Some plants look a bit like cacti, and many of the species have flowers that are actually bracts. 

Many of the plants are tropical and sub-tropical, though some members of this genus survive well in temperate regions. 

At the holiday season we see many poinsettias, native to Mexico; they are the best known euphorbias in commerce. They are imported or are grown in cold regions in greenhouses. 

Those that grow in the outdoors in cold regions are often referred to as milkweed or spurge and include Euphorbia polychroma with bright chrome-yellow clusters of flowers in zones 6 to 9. Like many in this genus, it exudes a milky sap when picked. 

Euphorbia marginata grows in zones 4 to 10 and is native to North America. It produces bright green leaves margined in white and broad petal-like bracts surrounding small flowers in summer. It grows quickly to two feet and is a pretty foil for any brightly colored neighboring flowers. 

Euphorbia schillingii or Schilling’s spurge is a frost-hardy, clump-forming perennial, growing to three feet and was discovered in Nepal by Tony Schilling in 1975. The flat flowers are produced from mid-summer to mid-autumn, and the fall foliage is often colorful in zones 5 to 9. 

Euphorbias are becoming more popular with gardeners recently, as they are versatile, easy- to-grow and deer resistant.

This episode originally aired December 4, 2014.