All posts by Jan Nelson

I am a landscape designer and consultant in the Santa Cruz mountains in California. I write a weekly gardening column for the Press Banner newspaper. I am also a Calif. Advanced Certified Nursery Professional and managed The Plantworks Nursery in Ben Lomond, Ca. for 20 years.
Design trends

Halloween Fun in the Garden

This scene on your porch would scare any trick-or-treater.

If I were looking for cool Halloween decorations or inspiration for breathtaking combinations of plants that shout “Fall is here”, I couldn’t have gone to a better place than Scarborough Gardens, the Scotts Valley nursery extraordinaire. Every vignette of plants along with the Halloween garden decor was more stunning than the last. I was mesmerized and wanted it take it all home. Jet showed me all the new perennials and shrubs arriving for fall planting. Lots of fun stuff including that classic of Halloween flowers, tall-stemmed marigolds.

I was in Central Mexico in the highlands of Chiapas many years ago during this celebration and was able to experience this tradition and enjoy the hundreds of marigolds growing around cottages, small business and churches.

The village of San Juan Chamula had dozens of greenhouses all growing marigolds. The Indian people use lots of these flowers as traditional decorations in religious ceremonies. They are also used extensively on the Day of the Dead which follows Halloween. Every small house grows marigolds as well as maize, squash, fava beans and other edible greens.

It’s beginning to look like Halloween in my neighborhood with chrysanthemums and pumpkins on porches, skeletons and ghouls decorating front doors and posts on Facebook about tarantula sightings as the spiders go about their fall mating ritual. It’s the plants that get my attention though.

If you want to decorate for Halloween there is plenty of plant material you can harvest from your own garden or nearby woods. Manzanita branches can often be found on the ground and make great arrangements combined with nandina or other berries. Some of the trees have started to turn color and their leaves can also be used for wreaths. The leaves of New Zealand flax last a long time and add fall color in bouquets.

If you’re thinking of growing your own pumpkins next year, I see many varieties in the seed catalog of Renee’s Garden including heirlooms, carving and pie pumpkins and mini’s. She even carries the heirloom French ‘Cinderella’s Carriage’. This French heirloom pumpkin was very popular during the 1880’s and is tasty in pies and savory dishes.

Many gardeners feel the Cinderella pumpkin is the very best pumpkin to grow in your garden. It’s the first to set fruit, first to ripen and is mildew resistant. Their bright orange creamy flesh is perfect for baking. Oven roasted they produce a pumpkin puree that is neither watery nor bitter. Delicious in pumpkin spice muffins, pumpkin soup or with vegetables and sausage. I even found aa recipe for pumpkin mac n’ cheese baked in a pumpkin

it’s time to bring in any plants that you plan to overwinter in the house. Whether they’re the houseplants that you put out on the patio for the summer or frost tender plants that you want to save, this is the time to bring them in and here’s why.

Although our nights are still above freezing, plants need to acclimate to the indoor environment before you start turning on the heater regularly. Be sure to wash them thoroughly and inspect them for any insects that may have taken up residence while they were vacationing outside. Usually you can dislodge any hitchhikers with a strong spray of water but if that doesn’t do the trick, spray them with a mild insecticidal soap or one of the other mild organic herbal sprays like oil of thyme.

Another tip: Fall is not a good time to prune. Wounds heal slowly, 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 late spring after leaves and needles form. To avoid sap flow on birches and maples, prune after leaves mature.

Design trends

Everything You Didn’t Know About Mums

You probably think of mums as boring. They’re everywhere at this time of year. Many consider them a bit of color on the front porch that you compost after they’ve finished flowering. But mums have a lot more to offer than that.

Mums are in their prime as early as September. We tend to think of chrysanthemums at Thanksgiving as temporary filler plants for fall containers and borders but mums are perennials and can play a bigger role in your garden if you let them. Established mums can tolerate quite a bit of neglect and still keep blooming every year.

Chrysanthemums were first cultivated in China as far back as the 15th century. Over 500 cultivars had been recorded by the year 1630. In Japan records go back all the way back to the 8th century relating to mums.

The botanical name for the garden chrysanthemum has been changed to dendranthemum grandiflorum but I never hear anyone use this name. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.

Yellow or white chrysanthemum flowers of the species. C. morifolium are boiled to make tea in some parts of Asia. In Korea, a rice wine is flavored with chrysanthemum flowers. Chrysanthemum leaves are steamed or boiled and used as greens in Chinese cuisine.

Another variety of chrysanthemum- cinerariaefolium- is important as a natural source of insecticide. The pyrethrins extracted attack the nervous system of all insects. Harmful to fish it should be used with caution but it’s not persistent in the environment and is biodegradable.

Grown for years to flower only in late summer and fall, they are short day plants, setting buds when they receive light for 10 hours and darkness for the other 14 hours of the day. This is why mums bloom in the spring on leggy stems if they are not cut back. And this is how growers manipulate their blooming, adjusting the dark and light periods with shades in the greenhouse so buds will form in any month. They’re nearly constantly available in grocery stores in every season. Mums grown for florists in greenhouses, however, produce few underground runners which mums need to survive the winter so they won’t come back.

At this time of year when garden mums abound, pick a plant with lots of buds. They bloom only once and won’t set more flowers until next year. Those buds, though, last a long time if you don’t let them dry out. They’ll revive if they do dry out but the flower buds won’t last as long or look as bright. Although mums are somewhat drought tolerant once established you should water deeply once or twice a week depending on the weather.

The specific type of plant doesn’t matter since they all have long term growth potential. If you particularly like one color or form of chrysanthemum, plant it now to enjoy again next year. You never know what the growers might decide to grow next season. Newly transplanted mums should get a high phosphorus fertilizer to stimulate root growth.

Choose a well-drained, sunny spot to plant them. Like many members of the aster family, mums won’t tolerate soggy ground. After blooming, trim off the old flowers and cut back plants to within a 4 or 5 inches of the ground. If you started with 4 inch pots, trim back by half.

Next spring pinch them back when they are 8 inches tall- around Memorial Day. Pinch again in July, then allow plants to start forming buds for the traditional fall show.

A word of caution: all parts of chrysanthemum plants are potentially toxic to dogs, cats, humans and other mammals and a skin irritant for some people. They aren’t generally eaten by deer but a really hungry deer will eat anything. Spray with a deer repellent to make them even less likely to be munched on.

Design trends

How to Create a Beautiful Garden

Fast growing with low water requirements Matilija poppy are sometimes called Fried Egg Plant.

Fall is a good time to design and plant a new garden. I love to read those articles in gardening magazines with titles like “How to Create a Complete Backyard in a Weekend” or “This Front Yard in Just one Year.” If you’re like me you think, “Can I really do that?” There are some short cuts that can make this happen and fall is the perfect time to try out some of them.

Start by making sure you have paths where you need them. Simple flagstone set in sand or soil work fine for meandering through the garden. A more formal and permanent path is needed to lead guests to the front door but stepping stones are quick and easy in other areas. Hardscaping like paths, walks and fences establish the framework for everything else to build from.

If you want your garden to fill in quickly, choose key plants that grow fast and are suited to your conditions of sun exposure, soil type and water availability. Plants given their preferred conditions will grow and flourish quickly. Designate irrigated areas for must-have plants and use plants that like it dry in your other areas. Most important, if you are going for high impact quickly, choose plants that perform right away instead of those needing a few growing seasons to grow in.

Begin your planting by choosing trees and shrubs for structure, especially in the winter. Fast growing trees include chitalpa, red maples, mimosa, birch, Raywood ash, flowering cherry, evergreen pear, bronze loquat and Purple Robe locust.

There are many shrubs that grow well in our area and fill in quickly. Choose from carpenteria, Matilija poppy, abelia, ceanothus, smoke bush, butterfly bush, bottlebrush, choisya, rockrose, escallonia, hydrangea, philadelphus, plumbago, abutilon, Lion’s Tail, Pride of Madeira and weigela.

Next come perennials that mature quickly and make your garden look like it’s been growing for years. East Friesland salvia is one such plant and blooms summer through fall if spent stems are removed. Their intense violet-blue flower spikes cover plants 18″ tall spreading 2-3 ft wide. They look great in wide swaths across the garden or along the border of a path and attract hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees.

Don’t forget the other salvias. There are some 900 species of salvias. They all grow quickly and are the workhorses of the fall garden. Autumn Sage (Salvia greggi) is drought tolerant and deer resistant (really). Although it tolerates some shade it looks best when planted in full sun. To encourage repeat blooms trim off spent flowers stalks when they start to look rangy. They come in a wide range of colors to accent or match any garden. Recent selections include magenta, burgundy, red, rose, pink, salmon and white.

Walkers Low catmint is another perennial that keeps going and growing. This vigorous spreading member of the mint family blooms profusely with little spikes of 1/2 inch periwinkle blue flowers from late spring through fall. Catmints are easy to care for. Shear plants back by half at the beginning of the season and after flowers fade. They are drought tolerant, too.

Where you need a big clump of color to fill in a space look also at mimulus, erysimum, penstemon, mondarda, purple coneflower, verbena de la mina and yarrow. They all put down deep roots and mature quickly. Be sure to include combinations that bloom in different months.

Yes, creating a garden slowly over many years is satisfying, but if you need to fill in a new area quickly, draw on some of these tips and your bare dirt will be full and beautiful in no time.