Design trends

What To-Do in the September Garden

Gaura – a perennial that attracts hummingbirds and blooms for a long time.

Summer is winding down. It’s still warm during the day but the nights are cool and there’s less and less daylight hours. The soil is still warm so it’s the perfect time to start thinking about planting. Like the saying goes, “gardening is a way of showing that you believe in tomorrow.”

Gardening makes us learn new things. If you water less frequently, some plants may decline or even die eventually. Remove those that do and replace them with plants that will thrive with less water.

Fertilize shrubs lightly one last time if you haven’t already done so last month. All shrubs, especially broad-leaved evergreens such as rhododendron, pieris, camellia, hebe, need to calm down, stop growing and harden off to get ready for the winter cold. Some plants have already set next year’s buds.

Roses especially appreciate a bit of fertilizer now, encouraging them to bloom another round in October. 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 rose to grow much sooner than if you cut to one with only three leaves. You can always cut lower on the stem if you need to control height.

Deadhead flowering annuals and perennials in the ground as often as you possibly can. Annuals like zinnias and cosmos will stop blooming if you allow them to go to seed. The same is true of repeat blooming perennials like dahlia, scabiosa, echinacea and lantana. Santa Barbara daisies will bloom late into winter if cut back now. These plants know they’re on this earth to reproduce. If they get a chance to set seed the show’s over, they’ve raised their family. Try to remove fading flowers regularly and you’ll be amply rewarded. If you want to start perennial flowers from seeds this is the time so that they’ll be mature enough to bloom next year.

Now through October, divide summer blooming perennials like agapanthus, coreopsis, daylilies and penstemons that are overgrown and not flowering well. You can also divide spring blooming perennials like candytuft, columbine, astilbe, bergenia and bleeding heart but sometimes they don’t bloom the first spring afterwards due to the energy they use re-establishing themselves. If you’re on a roll out in the garden, go for it now.

It’s still a little hot to plant cool season veggies starts in the ground. They appreciate conditions later in September when the soil is still warm but temps have cooled. It is OK to plant seeds of beets, carrots, spinach, arugula, mustard, leeks, onions, peas, radishes and turnips.

If you aren’t going to grow vegetables in the garden this fall consider planting a cover crop like crimson clover after you’ve harvested your summer vegetables.
It’s never too soon to start planning for erosion control in those areas that caused you problems during last spring’s storms.

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.

Grevillea lanigera ‘Coastal Gem’ , a goundrcover that attracts hummingbirds

Now that you’ve taken care of your chores reward yourself by adding perennials to your garden for color in late summer through fall. Take a look at the garden areas that aren’t working for you and replant. Good choices include aster, chrysanthemum, coreopsis, and gaillardia. Abutilon (Flowering Maple) come in so many colors that you probably need another one in your garden. Petite Pink gaura looks fabulous planted near the burgundy foliage of a loropetalum. Don’t overlook the color of other foliage plants like leucodtendron ‘Jester’ or Orange Libertia in the garden. A favorite ground cover that hummingbirds love is grevillea lanigera. Consider it for those hot areas.

One last to do: Make a journal entry celebrating the best things about your garden this year.

Design trends

Garden Inspiration Overload

Duranta erecta ‘Geisha Grl’

I’d been waiting for the tour of Griggs Wholesale nursery in Watsonville for a while. This company bought Suncrest Nursery last year and has breathed new life into it. A favorite for years, Suncrest had a reputation for excellence and this new version is living up to its name.

On a warm summer day, my friend Carri who is a retired Master Gardener, enjoyed touring the grounds, learning about the propagation program and just being wowed by all the beautiful plants growing at the nursery. Although Griggs is a wholesale-only nursery they provide plants to many of our local nurseries and I use their availability to suggest plants to clients that they can find at their favorite store.

Native abutilon palmeri

Griggs grows tons of native plants as well as low water use shrubs, succulents and perennials. One of the beautiful plants I learned about is the native abutilon palmeri (Palmer’s Abutilon). This showcase plant sports masses of bright gold flowers in spring and summer. The silvery soft, velvety foliage is equally showy. It’s a relatively rare species in the mallow family native to the southwestern US and northern Mexico. Besides being beautiful this abutilon is a tough, semi-evergreen shrub with a dense, rounded shape and grows to 4 to 5 feet tall and as wide.

The tour of the propagation and planting areas was enlightening, too. The new owner, Ken Griggs, has modified the soil mix to accommodate warmer climates but still provide good drainage. I learned that an 8 member crew can pot over 18,000 gallon cans per day or 2300- 5 gallon cans. The conveyor drops the prescribed amount of soil amendment, such as gypsum, automatically depending on the plant material requirements.

In another greenhouse, flats of plant starts were being shifted to 2 inch or quart pots where they eventually will be hardened off outside under shade cloth before being potted up. The flats start life on benches where they are watered with warm water to encourage rooting.

Back out in the growing grounds we learned about all the different crops being grown for sale. With over 50 acres total the vast selection of beautifully grown plant material was jaw dropping. One empty section recently held 400 Narrowleaf Milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis) that sold out immediately to nurseries and contractors when they were ready for sale. I bet the Monarch butterflies are happy.

Griggs grows thousands of different plants. Our cart drove past myriad blocks of grasses, vines, alstroemeria, epilobium, agastache, gaura, coprosma, achillea, euphorbia, erigeron, eriogonum, salvia, ceanothus, arctostaphylos- the selection is seemingly endless.

New hybrid, Summerina Orange Echibeckia, has vigor and disease tolerance.

One of the perennials that really caught my eye is a hybrid between echinacea and rudbeckia hirta. Summerina Orange Echibeckia is a really show stopper. It looks like a rudbeckia with a the vigor and disease tolerance of echinacea. The orange ray petals with a rust-orange inner halo surround a dark brown center cone. The flowers are huge on a compact plant and bloom for 2-3 months. It’s fast growing reaching 18 inches tall and wide.

So if you’re looking to add some shrubs, ground covers or perennials during the fall planting season, look for some of these plants at your local nursery. Many order from Griggs Wholesale and if they don’t have what you’re looking for they may be able to order them for you.

Design trends

Enjoying the September Garden

Butterflies, hummingbirds and bees are all attracted to coneflowers.

September is a month that signals change in the garden. You can feel the weather shifting. Days are not always quite so hot and the nights are longer and cooler. Some plants are at their prime, while others are winding down for the season. I used to have a large area covered with California fuchsia. The hummingbirds would go nuts with so many bright orange flowers to visit. In my present garden I have several abutilon for them to enjoy. I can’t even count how many flowers per day the hummingbirds visit. My fragrant dwarf butterfly bush is still blooming and attracting swallowtail butterflies while the salvias are favored by birds, bees and butterflies. What other late blooming perennials would be good to include in the garden?

There’s nothing quite like adding a few new perennials to brighten up the garden. There are many that don’t require a lot of water after they become established. I recently visited a garden where the irrigation was reduced to the point that that most of the plants were barely hanging on. But there among the crispy plants were two Hot Lips salvia blooming as big as you please. This plant is popular for a reason. Hummingbirds, butterflies and bees love it and it blooms for a long time. It stays compact and is a great carefree shrub for water wise gardens.

Daisy flowers always bring a smile to my face. As members of the composite family they have a flat landing surface for butterflies to land on. Coneflowers are one of my favorites. When they start blooming in the early summer I enjoy them both in the garden and as cut flowers inside. Some have a slight fragrance. Hybridizers have introduced beautiful shades of gold, yellow, orange, burgundy and coral in addition to the traditional purple and pure white. Because they are dormant in the winter they are good candidates for a garden that has summer sun but winter shade. They are not attractive to deer and are good additions to the low water garden. The clumps spread slowly and can be carefully divided after 3 or 4 years. If faded flowers are left in place, the bristly seed heads provide food for goldfinches in winter.

The herb echinacea is derived from varieties of this flower. Echinacea purpurea and other varieties are used as a fortifier of the immune system, mainly to prevent flu and minor respiratory diseases by increasing the body’s production of interferon. The roots are the part of this plant used for medicinal purposes.
Echinacea was used by Native Americans more than any other plant in the Plains States. It was used to treat snake and insect bites because of its antiseptic properties and to bathe burns. They chewed the plants roots to ease the pain of toothache. It was also used for purification. The leaves and the flowers can be used in teas as well.

Some other perennials to try are agastache or Hummingbird mint. Plant near your organic edible garden to provide nectar for pollinators as well as hummingbirds. The flowers are edible as a salad garnish, in baked goods and in cocktails while their foliage can be added to herb salads or in a cup of tea.

I like the bright flowers of Gloriosa Daisy, especially the longer lived Goldsturm variety. These perennials make good cut flowers, are tough and easy to grow. They are descended from wild plants native to the eastern U.S. but require only moderate water once established.

Gardening makes us learn new things. If you water less frequently, some plants may decline or even die eventually. Remove those that do and replace them with plants that will thrive with less water.

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