Summer Chores For Continued Blooms

The July 4th holiday here in the US is a date on my calendar to get summer chores started in the garden.  Now is the time to ensure blooms continue on perennials and shrubs.  To do this I get out the hedge trimmers and pruners. 
Here are some of the plants I give a summer haircut.  By cutting them back now, the plants do not produce seeds.  Setting seeds indicates to the plants that the season is over.  I want the season to continue well into the coming months. 

This catmint still had blooms and the bees were active.  It was getting straggly and covering up another aster. The catmint, as any plant in the mint family, can become aggressive and spread into the garden.  I have planted this in a gallon container with the bottom removed.  The roots still have garden soil to get nutrients, but the roots are more contained and cannot spread. 

Typical of any plant in the mint family, the stem is square.  Kinda cool!



I have asters in this bed. And I have said before, that I prefer asters to mums because they are more hardy and reliable.  Mums are considered to be ‘tender perennials’ in my Zone 6 garden.  The reason I cut back the asters  by at least a third at this time is to have the plant produce more tips and become more compact.  The more tips, the more buds will be produced for the fall bloom time. 
The Moonbeam coreopsis also shown here gets a haircut too.  Trimming the spent blooms tidies up the plant and, it too, will rebloom in a very short time. 


This stingy mass is a native plant called spiderwort,  Tradescantia. I have several varieties of spiderwort.  Some have gold foliage with deep blue blooms, (Sweet Kate), and some have a pale purple bloom, or a pure white bloom, or a true blue blossom.


At this mid-summer time however, spiderwort get really leggy and blooms are spent.  Cutting them back to 6” allows for the plant to produce fresh foliage will rebloom.


Some herbs that I should have cut back sooner like this lemon thyme and lemon balm have already bloomed and unfortunately have set seed.  That will ensure an invasion of new plants where I least expect them. 


These shrubs, the ninebark and forsythia will not rebloom this season, but they can be pruned at this time with little loss of blooms for next season.  Spring blooming shrubs should be pruned just after the blossoms fade to allow the shrub to grow new stems and set buds. 
The spirea also go a sever cutback. The spent blossoms are brown and the shrub is over grown. I do expect the spirea to rebloom later in the early fall.

As you can see, the overgrown spirea were hiding lungwort and hosta. 
Now with the garden all tidy, I can smile and know that my job as caretaker is under control. 
Enjoy your summer, and with just a few chores, the garden will continue to bloom.
What reblooming plants do you enjoy in your garden?

Answers to Recently Asked Plant Questions

Questions From My Readers

I've set aside this post to answer several questions that were asked regarding remarks I made in a previous article.  Clematis, Asters, and Native plants were leaving some with questions.  As I write, I make some statements and I forget that not all gardeners have the same experiences and I make some assumptions.  So please allow me to go back and clarify some items regarding clematis, asters, and native plants.
Q1) You said that your clematis have never bloomed so late.  When do they bloom?  And what happens when they are out of sync with their normal cycle? 


A1)   My  comment indicated that I had never had a clematis bloom in September, as several of my clematis were doing this year.  I can only attribute this late bloom to the fact that these plants were moved in late spring.  At the time of the transplanting, each plant got a feeding of organic fertilizer, and the new location was in full sun – more that six hours a day.  Their previous location was mostly shade – less than four hours of sun a day.  Clematis bloom times vary with the type of clematis. Some bloom in early summer,  some bloom in late Summer.  Some varieties are re- bloomers, which means they can and will have a secondary bloom after the first flush. This secondary flush usually does not produce as many blooms as the first. Two re-bloomer are Niobe, and Moonfleet. 

Moonfleet                                                   Niobe

The Autumn Clematis is a prolific blooms, bordering on invasive. It can grow 15 feet and easily cover a fence or structure in a season. It blooms – in Autumn – in my Zone 6 garden – in late August into September.

Q2)  You said that asters were more reliable than mums.  Why? 
  


A2)  Asters have been reliable in my Zone 6 garden for many years.  Mums, on the other hand, do not overwinter well.  Of the dozens of mums I have planted, only one survived.  Asters, a native to the United States, are a wildflower. Asters are more drought tolerant than mums, and are a great nectar source for butterflies and bees. Hybridizers have created beautiful colors in mauve, pinks, and purples. 
When I worked at a nursery where mums were grown, we told customers to treat mums as a ‘tender perennial’.  Fall planting of mums does not give the roots a chance to get established before the ground freezes.  Many folks were disappointed when the mums did not return in the spring.  Gardeners determined to have mums need to plant them in the spring and keep them  watered during the summer so roots have a better chance of survival.


Beautyberry


Q3)  There’s such thing as Native Plants? Which ones? And how do I take care of them?

A3)  This topic would take several books to fully explain.  So the (sorry) quick answer is:  Natives are plants that are original to an area,  before transplants came from foreign countries.  The recent interest in Natives is the resurgence of heritage, history, and the eco-friendly nature of these plants. 
Native plants can be herbaceous perennials, wildflowers, trees, and shrubs that have acclimated themselves to the 1) soils, 2) the moisture, 3) the insects, 4) and diseases common to the area and have survived.

 
Native trees, shrubs, and perennials are not too picky on soil. They can survive, and actually thrive, in poor soils.  They do not want heavy fertilization, and once established, they are drought tolerant.

I hope these answers clarify some of the items in question. If I can explain anything else, please feel free to add a comment.  Gardeners love to share, so join in the discussion. 

Garden Ideas for September Color

September Colors That Pop

"I've been looking at so much dirt and mud I forgot to look at why I garden in the first place ... pretty flowers in bloom!"




The variegated liriope is sending up lovely purple spikes in the September garden. And this stone has moss that is blooming from all the crevices.  Quite lovely.



Asters in shades of lavender are just coming on. I find asters are more reliable than mums in my garden.  I wouldn’t want a September garden without them.




The clematis has never bloomed this late in the season, and I saw several more buds yet to bloom.  (Hoping the weather doesn’t get too cold before they do.)




The few roses I have left are getting in one more show.

Eupatorium rugosum ‘Chocolate’ is a real bright spot in the garden and it has dozens of bees visiting. This is a relative to the native known as ‘Joe-Pye Weed’.

The yarrow, Achillea, is a ferny perennial that held up well in full sun, and little water.   After cutting it back by about half in mid-July, it is full of buds and color again.





Japanese Anemone (varieties unknown) are in full sun and are 4’-5’ tall.  They typically bloom in autumn and, they too, are loaded with bees.

  
 Sedum, Autumn Joy is simply gorgeous.
 
 The blue of the plumbago is not as full as previous years.  This is one plant I severely cut back in the garden renovation.




Black-eyed Susan are adding color here and there.  The Caryopteris is a shrub with a dainty blue blossom. It is getting more sun now that we took down a big ash tree, so I’m hoping that next year is will bloom more. 




Chelone lyonii, Hot Lips, or Turtlehead has a bloom that reminds folks of a turtle’s head and resembles a snapdragon.  Preferring moist locations, I am happy to see ‘Hot Lips’ looking so well after this hot, dry summer.  The spirea was quite satisfied with the summer sun., however.  I pruned about a third of the plant off earlier in the summer, and, as you can see, it is a  show-off!



The plant world never ceases to amaze me – this weigela ‘Wine and Roses’  a spring bloomer, is reblooming in mid-September.



Fading blooms of hydrangea are elegant and a beautiful shade of mauve.

Trictus, Toad Lily is tiny, about one inch in diameter, but I’ve seen humming birds hit on them all week. Dainty blooms are very pretty, and the foliage holds up nicely too. 

I really needed to see the garden.  Too often I get bogged down in the chores, and forget about the payoff of all the work – the flowers!
Thanks for visiting my September garden.  What is blooming in yours?

Building the Garden of your Dreams

The Dream Garden or A Nightmare Garden

The 2010 summer in my zone 6 garden has been challenging.  The extreme heat has many of the late summer perennials fading earlier than normal.  The coneflowers are brown and the daisys are just sticks.

The ferns hate the heat.  I'm hoping that  with the extra watering I've given them, they will emerge nicely in the spring.




Even the perennial sunflowers which are drought tolerant have given up the fight this year.

The lawn has not been a priority for me to keep green.  My water bill will be bad enough just concentrating on shrubs, and perennials.  (The rain barrel has been empty for weeks!)

We fertilized the gardens and turf Sunday with an organic fertilizer ( 4-3-5) and some left over corn gluten (9-0-0).We were anticipating some rain which lasted 10 minutes and cooler temperatures.  This is late September, after all!  Forecast for this next week is 12 - 15 degrees above normal - near 90 degrees. Good thing that organic fertilizers will not burn the turf as chemical fertilizers can.


On the positive side of gardening this season is the second blush of the lavender.  Since lavender thrive in heat and low moisture, I shouldn't have been surprised.

The pink fall anemones which bloomed a few weeks ago have finished their show, but the white anemones, which are over 5 feet tall, look great.

Sedum Autumn Joy is full and gorgeous. 

Several roses are reblooming, including this "Queen Elizabeth".

These 'FejetaBells' are in heaven.

This aster is one of five varieties we have in the garden.  I prefer the reliablity of asters for fall color over mums which do not over winter well for me.

So, building the garden of you dreams is not a science.  Nature has a way of interjecting her will on us.  We may research plants draw diagrams of flower beds, and arrange plant varieties so we can have color all season, BUT, (lesson learned)  brown is a color.  Oh well,  there is always next year. 

Relax and enjoy whatever happens.  Remember we are not the center or the source.  Just the caretakers.

How did your garden fair this year?  Let us know.  And thanks for stopping by.  Claudia