Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• Fall is for planting! Trees, shrubs and perennials planted now will grow twice as much next year as those planted next spring.

• Cover crops should be planted in the garden as soon as you pull out summer crops. They will feed the soil and prevent erosion over the winter.

• Garlic cloves can be planted now. Keep them watered and weeded through the winter and you will harvest healthy large bulbs next June.

• Ornamental cabbage makes a dramatic planting in flower beds over the winter.

• Divide artichoke plants which have been in the ground for three or four years. Mulch established plants with steer manure.

Combining Bulbs and Perennials for Spring Beauty

A spring garden should be full of surprises all season long. From the early crocuses of late winter, through the power and glory of tulips, until the abundant blooms of summer arrive to take their turn, the spring garden should be a showplace. And it can be. All it takes is some planning this fall.

Fall is, of course, the time to plant flowering bulbs such as tulips and daffodils. Fall is also a great time to plant perennials that come up in the spring such as hostas, bleeding hearts, peonies, coral bells, daylilies, and others. Skillful combination of bulbs and perennials can make your garden a showcase next spring.

After flowering, bulbs need to be left alone for about six weeks, until their foliage is brown and withered. The foliage dieback period is necessary for the bulbs to “re-charge” for the next season’s bloom, but it can be unsightly. This is where perennial partners can help out.

As the bulb foliage dies back, the perennial foliage is filling out to cover the waning foliage of the bulbs. This “camouflage” strategy can help keep your garden looking fresh, while your bulb flowers make their exit and the ensuing perennial flower show begins.

But camouflage is only part of the strategy. Emerging perennials also complement tulips and other spring-bloomers in the spring garden, providing contrasting foliage that is quite pleasing. Some will even bloom together.

Dicentra spectabilis (bleeding heart), with its fern-like leaves and arching sprays of heart-shaped flowers, adds a graceful romantic tone to the early spring garden. After it blooms, the foliage dies back for the summer. Dicentra eximia ‘Luxuriant’ is a lovely old-fashioned plant with ferny, gray-green foliage and sprays of pink, heart-shaped flowers from May to September. They prefer shady conditions, but can handle full winter sun under deciduous trees.

Hemerocallis (daylilies) are another good bulb foliage concealer with dense strappy foliage that comes up in spring. Depending on the variety, it can provide weeks – or even months – of summer bloom. Daylilies and daffodils are a classic combination. Planted together, daffodils and ever-blooming daylilies can provide bloom from April till October in the same spot.

Hostas with large, colorful leaves of green, chartreuse, blue-tones, golden-green, and green edged in white, are perfect partners for daffodils. As the daffodils mature, the hostas expand to their full glory and camouflage the fading bulb foliage. Use in areas that get morning sun.

Penstemons and yarrows are usually cut back in the winter, which gives spring bulbs room to display their glory. When they start growing, they will cover the browning foliage as the bulbs fade.

Of course pansies and violas also make an excellent bulb companions as they will bloom from now through next spring.

Make your spring garden a masterpiece with some planning this fall.

• Trim foliage on grape vines to allow more sun to reach the fruit and ripen the grapes.

• If your bearded iris blooms were sparse this year or the plants are more than four years old, now is the time to divide and replant them. Mix some bone meal into the soil, and plant the rhizomes just beneath the soil surface.

• Lilac bushes will bloom better next spring if you cut back on the watering now.

• Keep apples picked up from under the trees to help control the spread of coddling moths which make wormy apples.

• Cover newly planted vegetable starts to protect them from birds. Spray cabbage and broccoli plants with BT to control cabbage worms which make holes in the leaves.

Low-maintenance Perennials

Perennials give us some of the best flowers in the garden. These hardy plants come back year after year getting bigger and better each time. Most perennials take a lot of dead-heading to keep them looking nice throughout their blooming time, but there are a few that are easier to care for. Cut them down when they are done flowering and that’s all the maintenance they need.

Sedum Autumn Joy is a well-known favorite that attracts butterflies. The leaves grow close to the ground, then once a year it sends up shoots topped with soft pink flowers, similar to yarrow. As the days get shorter, the flowers turn a rich rusty red.

Moonbeam Coreopsis produces star-like blossoms of pale yellow with finely textured foliage that is good-looking all season. It blooms from July through October and spreads 18-24” wide.

Black-eyed Susan, Rudbeckia fulgida ‘Goldsturm’, grows into a large clump with 3’ tall golden, black-centered, daisy flowers bloom from August to October.  Seed heads are attractive to birds in the fall and winter.

Stella D’oro Daylily has bright, golden-yellow flowers that bloom throughout the summer above fresh green leaves. It is compact, growing only 16 inches tall, and is good for containers and flower borders.

Purple Dome New England Aster is a compact aster with dark green foliage and profuse bloom of dark purple daisy flowers which can entirely cover the plant in September and October. 

Santa Barbara Daisy, Erigeron karvinskianus, is a low-growing perennial that is covered with little white daisy flowers all summer long. It is tolerate drought once established, and can be used as a border plant or to hang over a wall.

Peonies are easy to grow and give you magnificent flowers in May-June. They come in pink, white and red and live for many years, growing into a larger clump with more flowers each year.

For shady areas, Hostas can’t be beat. With their beautiful foliage in different combinations of blue, green, white and yellow, they will fill the shady bed with their colorful leaves. Hostas also bloom in the summer with spikes of lavender to white, lily-like flowers, which can be quite showy.

Heucheras, or Coral Bells, are one of the most diverse and colorful shade perennials.  Plant them as a groundcover, or intersperse some between other plants. Their round leaves come in many colors from bright green to purples to near black, and they send up delicate spikes of white or coral flowers in the summer.

Helleborus is an iron clad deer-proof plant that tolerates dry shade once established. It blooms very early, in late winter with cup-like, greenish-white flowers. Some varieties have pinkish flowers, but their broad leaves are good-looking all year.

Dicentra, or Bleeding Heart, is one of the easiest perennials to grow in the shade. The pretty little pink flowers in the spring resemble pink and white hearts, and when they are done, the plant turns yellow and dies back. Clean up dead foliage and forget about them until next year.

Fall is a good time to plant perennials. They will get established over the winter and bloom beautifully for you next year.

• Finish planting the summer vegetable garden. Seeds of early corn, and beans can go directly in the soil and plants of tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, melons, squash, cucumbers and basil can be set out.

• Fertilize container plants every 10 to 14 days with a liquid fertilizer. Pinch off faded blossoms and they will keep blooming all summer for you.

• Red, white and blue petunias, verbena or combinations of these with lobelia, geraniums, impatiens and salvia will make a nice display for the Fourth of July.

• Attract birds to your garden with a concrete bird bath. They come in many attractive styles and make good gifts.

• Feed rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias with an acid plant food to encourage lush growth. Pinch or prune to promote full, dense growth.

Create Your Own Cottage Garden

Whether the image comes from a childhood storybook or a memory of Grandma’s flower beds, the informal, joyful look of a cottage garden is appealing to many of us. Even the names are magical, like “lamb’s ears”, “pincushion flower”, and “love in a mist”. You will enjoy giving tours of your garden as much to share their colorful names as their glorious flowers.

Don’t worry about “rules” when making a cottage garden. Just have fun creating pleasing combinations of color, texture and proportion. You’ll need to take into consideration the amount of sun or shade the garden area receives and choose appropriate plants accordingly.

Traditionally, an English cottage garden is a front yard garden enclosed by a wall, fence or hedge. It has a welcoming front gate and a path to the front door. More paths define the beds which are filled with a rich mixture of plantings.

You may want to begin with a structure such as an arbor or trellis. Nothing says “cottage garden” more beautifully that a rose-and-clematis covered arbor surrounded by a rainbow of cheerful flowers. Or perhaps a fountain or birdbath, a statue or a gazing ball will give your garden a special touch that makes it uniquely yours.

The real show in a cottage garden is a relaxed jumble of free-flowing flowers, vines, trees, shrubs, bulbs and ground covers. The well-defined planting beds give structure to the garden: an “organized disarray.”

Try for a long season of color by using perennials that flower at different times through the spring and summer. Roses, peonies, carnations and hollyhocks were among the perennials commonly planted in days gone by. Hydrangeas, lilacs, lavenders and daisies of all types add a profusion of color. Tall sunflowers will follow the sun through the day. Ornamental grasses can be mixed in with the flowers, and bulbs can be tucked in between.

Even herbs and vegetables are welcome in the cottage garden. A ‘Patio’ tomato plant will stay neat and compact, eggplants can be enjoyed for their flowers as well as their fruits, and lettuces come in many colors and leaf shapes to add texture to the border.

Your cottage garden can feature similarly colored plants in groupings that paint the garden with swaths of color, or a mixture of contrasting colors that shout joyfully to passersby.

No matter how you interpret the cottage garden style, remember that a barely controlled jumble of plants suggests the workings of nature over time and gives the garden its much admired, storybook charm.