Tag Archives: fall gardening

Enjoy Fall in the Garden

Bearded iris can be divided when they become crowded and unproductive

Fall is a favorite season for many people. The heat of summer is just about over and our gardens can breathe a sigh of relief. Well, actually I’ve never heard any plants sigh but I know they can communicate with one another. For us up here in the Santa Cruz mountains, this is one of the best times to be outside. Here are tips for early fall in the garden.

Late fall is not a good time for major pruning so if you have some shrubs that need a tune-up do it soon. Wounds heal slowly later in the fall, leaving them more susceptible to disease. As a general rule, don’t prune when leaves are falling or forming. Wait to prune most trees until late in the dormant season or in late spring after leaves and needles form. To avoid sap flow on birches and maples, prune after leaves mature. Fruit tree summer pruning should have already been done when growth ceased.

Refresh perennials, such as butterfly bush, salvia and yarrow by cutting a third to half of their growth later in the fall.

Rake leaves- compost or put in your green can. If large leaves are left in place they will mat down and set up fungal problems come spring.

Remove dead and diseased leaves from under camellias, rhododendrons and roses.

Divide perennials like alstroemeria in the fall

Now through October, divide summer blooming perennials that are overgrown and not flowering well. Alstroemeria, agapanthus, coreopsis, iris, daylily, yarrow, rudbeckia, calla lily, aster and penstemon fall into this category. You can also divide spring blooming perennials like candytuft, columbine, astilbe, bergenia and bleeding heart although they don’t always bloom the first spring afterwards due to the energy they use re-establishing themselves. If you’re on a roll out in the garden, though, go for it now. You never know what other projects you may be working on next spring.

Start perennial flowers seeds now so that they will be mature enough to bloom next year.

Fertilize shrubs lightly one last time with an all-purpose organic fertilizer or layer of compost. Use compost only on California natives.

Plant cool season veggie starts like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, chard, lettuce, spinach, brussell sprouts, onions and leeks in soil enriched with 4-6 inches of compost as summer vegetable crops will have used up much of your soil’s nutrients.You can sow seeds of beets, carrots, radishes, spinach, arugula, mustard and peas directly in the ground. Planting early ensures your plants get a good start before cold weather sets in and growth mostly stops until spring. You’ll be able to start harvesting in just a couple months if you start now that the weather has started to cool.

If you aren’t going to grow vegetables in the garden this fall consider planting a cover crop like bell beans, fava beans and vetch after you’ve harvested your summer vegetables. Next month I’ll talk about how to go about doing this and how this benefits your soil.

Cut back berry vines that have produced fruit. Canes of the current season should be trained in their place.

Spider mites and thrips are especially prolific during early fall. If some of the leaves on your plants are pale with stippling, spray the undersides of infected leaves with organics like insecticidal soap switching off with neem oil as they build up a resistance to one of the pesticides. Plan to spray with a horticultural oil in the winter to kill overwintering eggs.

Fall Gardens

Pineapple sage blooming now.

The end of daylight savings time signals to me that autumn is really here in our mild California surroundings. Enjoy these crisp mornings and warm days and to make your garden more compelling, try mixing in late flowering perennials as well as trees and shrubs with bold leaves and a wide range of autumn color.

Sasanqua camellia blooms from fall into winter.

Bright trees and shrubs add color flashes to fall gardens. Sasanqua camellias have already started blooming and will continue to flower throughout the winter. In addition to asters and rudbeckia, Japanese anemones are the stars of the border at this time of year. The electric blue flowers of dwarf plumbago contrast with reddish leaves as night temperatures dip, Encore azalea and Endless Summer hydrangea are blooming now, too.

Other perennials that are blooming now are California fuchsia, Pineapple sage and Mexican bush sage.

California fuchsia

I love my patch of California fuchsia. Starting in the summer and flowering through fall this California native is covered with orange or scarlet-orange flowers that attract hummingbirds like crazy. A great plant along the path or draping over a rock wall this perennial thrives in areas that might fry other plants. Also known as Epilobium canan or Zauschneria it is in the evening primrose family and native to dry slopes and chaparral especially in California.

Mexican Bush Sage

Mexican bush sage look great blooming alongside California fuchsia. Orange and blue are opposite on the color wheel so they look fabulous together. The bright red flower spikes of Pineapple sage look pretty nearby so the whole area is a hummingbird feast.

But what about vivid foliage in the garden? Which plants put on the best show in our area? Here are some of my favorites.

A great tree for the gardener interested in edibles is the Fuyu persimmon. This beautiful small tree is ornamental with glossy green leaves and also offers a dramatic fall display in shades of yellow, orange and red. Bright orange fruit begins to develop in late October and clings to bare branches usually through December. The tree looks more like it’s covered with holiday ornaments than fruit. And have you priced persimmons in the store lately?

Blueberries are a must for the edible gardener. They make a beautiful hedge that provides showy red or yellow fall color. Because of our colder winters here in the mountains, we can grow both northern highbush which are self-fertile and southern highbush which produce better with another type to pollinize them. They can be great foundation plants around the home as well as in the garden.

A vine that lights up with the onset of autumn is Rogers Red California grape. If you have an arbor, wall or fence that need covering quickly, this is your plant. The green and gray leaves are transformed in autumn into great draperies of rich, scarlet red leaves with clusters of summer fruit turning all shades of purple.

Japanese barberries are deer resistant, low water-use small shrubs that make them superb hedge plants, background plants against fences and foundations or accent plants. Red or lime colored summer foliage changes to orange, red or amber in the fall. I love the graceful growing habit of many of the varieties but there are pillar forms and also dwarf types.

Bright foliage on trees like red maples, liquidamber, Chinese pistache, ginkgo, ornamental pear, cherry or crabapple, dogwood, goldenrain, locust, katsura, oak, redbud, sumac and witchhazel all add to the fall drama of the landscape.

Light up your garden as the light fades and the days shorten. I know my garden needs a greater variety of fall color than just the Japanese maples in pots on the deck and the barberries. I’m waiting for my purple smoke bush to turn luminous scarlet and add color flashes to my fall garden.

Fall Tasks in the Garden

Some people wait all year for fall weather to arrive. The heat of summer is over and the tourists are gone along with that pesky fog along the coast. For us up here in the Santa Cruz mountains, this is one of the best times to be outside. Here are tips for early fall in the garden.

Late fall is not a good time for major pruning so if you have some shrubs that need a tune-up do it soon.  Wounds heal slowly later in the fall, leaving them more susceptible to disease. As a general rule, don’t prune when leaves are falling or forming. Wait to prune most trees until late in the dormant season or in late spring after leaves and needles form. To avoid sap flow on birches and maples, prune after leaves mature. Fruit tree summer pruning should have already been done when growth ceased.

Refresh perennials, such as butterfly bush, salvia and yarrow by cutting a third to half of their growth later in the fall.

Rake leaves- compost or put in your green can. If large leaves are left in place they will mat down and set up fungal problems come spring.

Remove dead and diseased leaves from under camellias, rhododendrons and roses.

 

Bearded iris

Now through October, divide summer blooming perennials that are overgrown and not flowering well. Alstroemeria, agapanthus, coreopsis, iris, daylily, yarrow, rudbeckia, calla lily, aster and penstemon fall into this category. You can also divide spring blooming perennials like candytuft, columbine, astilbe, bergenia and bleeding heart although they don’t always bloom the first spring afterwards due to the energy they use re-establishing themselves. If you’re on a roll out in the garden, though, go for it now. You never know what other projects you may be working on next spring.

Start perennial flowers seeds now so that they will be mature enough to bloom next year.

Fertilize shrubs lightly one last time with an all-purpose organic fertilizer or layer of compost. Use compost only on California natives.

broccoli with sweet alyssum

Plant cool season veggie starts like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, chard, lettuce, spinach, brussels sprouts, onions and leeks in soil enriched with 4-6″ of compost as summer vegetable crops will have used up much of your soil’s nutrients.You can sow seeds of beets, carrots, radishes, spinach, arugula, mustard and peas directly in the ground. Planting early ensures your plants get a good start before cold weather sets in and growth mostly stops until spring. You’ll be able to start harvesting in just a couple months if you start now that the weather has started to cool.

If you aren’t going to grow vegetables in the garden this fall consider planting a cover crop like bell beans, fava beans and vetch after you’ve harvested your summer vegetables. Next month I’ll talk about how to go about doing this and how this benefits your soil.

Cut back berry vines that have produced fruit. Canes of the current season should be trained in their place.

Spider mites and thrips are especially prolific during the late summer. If some of the leaves on your plants are pale with stippling, spray the undersides of infected leaves with organics like insecticidal soap switching off with neem oil as they build up a resistance to one of the pesticides. Plan to spray with a horticultural oil in the winter to kill overwintering eggs.

Shady Garden Success Stories

If you read my column regularly or even once in a while you’ve probably heard me lament about the difficult growing conditions here in my garden. Between the sandy soil, 5 hours of intense sun but for only 6 months of the year, gophers, squirrels, moles, deer and chipmunks I’m happy if any plant thrives. So it is with pleasure that I report to you the small successes I’ve had lately and maybe give you hope that you might also grow plants that provide some color and fragrance in your garden along with attracting hummingbirds, songbirds, bees and butterflies.

As the sun shifts lower in the sky, my garden becomes shadier each day. The soil is still warm, however, and that encourages root growth so even though I won’t see much happening above ground until late next spring hope springs eternal and I am driven to plant more natives as well as other appropriate plants that will fill in those blank spots.

Gaura l. ‘Siskiyou Pink’

This week a clump of deep pink gaura lindheimeri is blooming like crazy. If I had my druthers I wouldn’t have planted it among a stand of orange flowering California fuchsia but it still looks great against the gray foliage of the epilobium or zauschneria or whatever it’s called now days.

Gaura ’Siskiyou Pink attracts butterflies and hummingbirds and needs only occasional water. The books will tell you gaura requires full sun but mine is thriving without a lot of sun. Don’t be afraid to try a plant you like despite what the books tell you.

Zauschneria aka epilobium

Same goes for the light requirements of the California fuchsia. Mine is happily spreading and it gets only partial sun for part of the year. Las Pilitas nursery website, a great source of information, does say they will tolerate part-shade and commonly grow where there is extra moisture in the winter and spring, gradually drying through fall. Guess that 140 inches of rainfall I got up here in Bonny Doon last winter would fall into that category. As far as the renaming of plants California fuchsia apparently is now called epilobium canum but the name zauschneria may come back so call them whatever works for you.

One of these days I want to plant a few more native plants that will tolerate shade and attract wildlife. Toyon with it’s red berries is high on my list as is Pacific wax myrtle. I have a pink flowering currant which is doing well as well as sambucus mexicana which the hummingbirds, jays and chipmunks like and a Black Lace elderberry.

Sambucus ‘Black Lace’

Of course, all the different ceanothus do well in partial shade, grow fast and the birds and bees love them both in bloom and now that they are full of berries and seeds. My covey of quail find the berries irresistible. Apparently porcupine like them also but fortunately for my dog, Sherman, I don’t have any of those.

California native Pacific Coast Iris, Woodland Strawberry, Heuchera maxima, Western Columbine, Bleeding Heart, Mimulus and Wild Ginger all do well in my lean, shady, sandy soil. For some reason I don’t have any any coffeberry or any Oregon Grape but they are both on my wish list. Coffeeberry is one of the best all around native plants for wildlife and mahonia or Oregon Grape bloom in the winter and provide much needed nectar for hummingbirds.

Take advantage of the fall planting season to spruce up the problem spots in your shady garden. Email me at janis001@aol.com if you would like more suggestions.

Stars of the Fall Garden

More and more of us are embracing the concept of gardening with a sense of place. To garden where you live means accepting that your garden in California is naturally more subdued by fall. Plants that bring color to the garden at this time of year are invaluable. A successful garden is a feeling.

The fall bloomers and ornamental grasses are at their peak right now and thanks to our recent rainfall they are getting a big drink. Many birds are loading up on carbohydrates and fats to provide fuel for their migration. Others will stick around and want to be in the best possible condition for the winter season. In addition to seeds, nuts and acorns, flowers are important in their diets,

leonotis_leonuris
Lion’s Tail

With Halloween almost upon us orange blooming plants like Lion’s Tail look perfect in the autumn garden and gets the attention of birds, bees and butterflies. The scientific name leonotis leonurus translates from the Greek words meaning lion and ear in reference to the resemblance of the flower to a lion’s ear but this perennial shrub has long been called Lion’s Tail in California. A member of the mint family it starts blooming in very early summer and continues through fall. Having very low water needs and hardy down to 20 degrees it’s perfect for a drought tolerant garden.

California fuchsia is also at the height of its blooming season. Starting in the summer and flowering through fall this California native will be covered with orange or scarlet-orange flowers that attract hummingbirds like crazy. A great plant along the path or draping over a rock wall this perennial thrives in areas that might fry other plants. Also known as Epilobium canan or Zauschneria it is in the evening primrose family and native to dry slopes and chaparral especially in California.

bulbine
Orange Stalked Bulbine

Another good choice for your drought tolerant garden is the long blooming Hallmark bulbine. The Orange Stalked bulbine is a succulent you’ve got to try. Starting in late spring and continuing through fall and often into winter this one foot tall groundcover spreads to four or five feet wide. The orange star-like flowers with frilly yellow stamens form atop long stalks that rise above the foliage. Remove spent flower stalks to encourage reblooming.

mimulus
Mimulus Jelly Bean Gold

What’s a fall garden without an orange or gold hued mimulus to feed the hummingbirds? Mine haven’t stopped blooming since early summer. Deer resistant and drought tolerant Sticky Monkey flower get the sticky part of their common name from their leaves which are covered with a resinous oil discouraging the larvae of the checkerspot butterfly from dining too greedily.

Orange and blue are opposite on the color wheel so they look fabulous together. Enter the salvias with their mostly blue and purple flowers. From California natives such as salvia clevelandii to Mexican bush sage to Autumn sage there are thousands of varieties on the market. All are deer resistant, gopher resistant, drought tolerant and hummingbird magnets.

Late Summer Tasks for the Garden

It’s darker in the mornings now with the sunset coming earlier each evening. All that time I thought I’d have back in June to get things accomplished in the garden has vanished in what seems like a wink of an eye. Still the weather these days is perfect for being outside and pecking away at my to do list. There are also some late summer/early fall tasks that need attention.

alstroemeria_variegated
Alstroemeria ‘Rock & Roll’

Now through October, divide summer blooming perennials like alstroemeria, agapanthus, coreopsis, iris, daylily, yarrow, rudbeckia, calla lily, aster and penstemon that are overgrown and not flowering well. You can also divide spring blooming perennials like candytuft, columbine, astilbe, bergenia and bleeding heart although they don’t always bloom the first spring afterwards due to the energy they use re-establishing themselves. Start perennial flowers seeds now so that they will be mature enough to bloom next year.

This is the perfect time for transplanting or adding new plants to your garden. Why? Cooler air is kinder to plant foliage and soil temperatures are still warm which creates an excellent environment for new root growth. In the fall many plants and trees, even broadleaf evergreens, are entering a period of dormancy. With no need to allocate resources into foliage, plants are transferring all their energy into roots and storing nutrients for the cool months ahead. By spring, the new roots system should be well established.

Perhaps it’s time to remove or reduce lawn. Replant with more drought tolerant ornamental grasses or perennials.

achillea_pink
Achillea millefolium

Fertilize shrubs lightly one last time with an all-purpose organic fertilizer or layer of compost. This advice doesn’t apply to California natives. They like compost only around the roots during the winter while they get ready for their growing season.

Roses especially appreciate a bit of fertilizer now, encouraging them to bloom another round in the fall. To keep them blooming make a habit of pinching and pruning off old flowers. Always cut back to an outward facing branchlet with five leaves. There are hormones there that will cause a new flower bud to grow much sooner than if you cut to one with only three leaves.

Plant cool season veggie starts like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, chard, lettuce, spinach, brussels sprouts, onions and leeks in soil enriched with 4-6″ of compost as summer vegetable crops will have used up much of your soil’s nutrients.You can sow seeds of beets, carrots, radishes, spinach, arugula, mustard and peas directly in the ground.

soil_builder_cover_crop_mix-1600
Soil builder cover crop mix

If you aren’t going to grow vegetables in the garden this fall consider planting a cover crop like crimson clover, fava or bell beans after you’ve harvested your summer vegetables.

Cut back berries vines that have produced fruit. Canes of the current season should be trained in their place.

Spider mites are especially prolific during hot, dry weather. Sometimes you don’t even know how bad the infestation is until all your leaves are pale with stippling. Periodically rinse dust and dirt off leaves with water. Spray the undersides of infected leaves with organics like insecticidal soap switching to neem oil if they build up a resistance to one of the pesticides.

And whatever you do, enjoy being outside in this beautiful place we call home.