Bayscape Blog 09/07/11
Time to Tackle Your Garden
September has arrived, school is back in session, and all that’s left of summer is the 1000 photos you took on summer vacation. If you are a gardener that’s all good news! Fall is the best time of all in the garden. The weather is starting to cool, so you can tackle all those projects you tried to do in July when it was over 100 degrees. Summer flowers are fading and as you cut off the spent foliage look for any empty spots that could use additional plants. Take some time to assess your garden to see what worked and what didn’t work this growing season and also what plants made you work. Then, let the fun begin, and get some new plants for your garden.
Yes, fall is the best time to add new plants to your landscape. If you are buying plants there are lots of sales going on, because retailers don’t want to care for plants over the winter. If you are looking for “free” plants, try trading with fellow gardeners. Many are digging and dividing now and have lots of extras to trade or give away. The weather is good for planting and there is enough time before winter weather arrives for the plants to adapt to their new home.
No matter if you are starting a new garden or renovating an existing one, the hardest part is selecting new plants. Where do you start? It can be really difficult to limit your choices. There are so many worthy plants available and we gardeners want them all! Make the process easier by choosing native plants. Read through the older posts on this blog to get ideas. You are sure to find some sensational natives to add to your garden.
The goal of any garden should be to have at least three seasons of interest, another good reason to turn to natives. Many natives have multiple seasons of interest. A good example is the native shrub chokeberry (Aronia). It has clusters of small white flowers in the spring, followed by a spectacular display of red berries that last from late summer until the end of winter and great red fall color too. Try a viburnum dentatum, with white flowers in spring, dark blue-black fruit in late summer and sizzling red fall color. For flowers, choose native perennials with long bloom times, interesting seed heads and good fall color. For additional interest in your landscape select flowers that will attract butterflies or hummingbirds. Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberose) will guarantee monarch butterflies and hummingbirds love cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis).
One of the best pieces of advice I ever received for choosing plants is “don’t fight the sight”. In other words, choose a plant that works in your space instead of choosing a plant and then trying to change the space so that the plant will survive there. Put sun lovers in sun and shade lovers in shade. If the plant is drought tolerant don’t plant it in a spot that is irrigated. If you have a wet site in your garden go with plants that enjoy wet feet. Plants will be happier, healthier, look better and require much less of your time.
Remember to become a Shore Steward. You don’t have to live on the shore to make a difference in the quality of the water flowing into Barnegat Bay. So this month don’t landscape, Bayscape. Choosing native plants will give you a beautiful landscape that requires no fertilization, so there will be much less pollution flowing into the waterways. Go to www.littoralsociety.org for more information.
