Container Gardening

Mary, Mary...

  How does your garden grow?

by Mary Crowell

NOVEMBER, 2007
  
Fall cleanup is so important for a healthy garden, time spent now will pay off in future months. Weeding will also improve the look of your garden instantly. It is true we do not get the color changes so prevalent in other zones or back east, but we are also fortunate that we don’t get those awful winters and we can grow almost anything in our climate.
   
Now is the time to plant cool season flowers, such as primroses, primulas, pansies, violas, snapdragons, stock, cyclamen, iceland poppies, and hellebores, plus trees and shrubs.  Camellias, another great shrub, especially the sasanquas, are in bloom and bud in the nurseries so you can pick the ones you want to plant now. Remember snails and slugs are really active in the winter, so don’t forget the pet-safe Sluggo or the beer in shallow lids!  Garden debris harbors snails, earwigs and many other pests and a host of plant diseases. By composting your leaves, you will eliminate the hiding places of many pests and open the sunlight to the plants below.
  
There is still time to plant bulbs such as daffodils, tulips, hyacinths and many more spring blooming bulbs. Plant early blooming smaller bulbs as ground cover, they will reward you early in the spring season. It is also the time to plant winter vegetables such as lettuce, spinach, chard, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower,  onions and garlic.
  
Roses don’t need too much right now but if you don’t want to keep cutting off the spent blooms, pull the spent petals now and let the hips form. This discourages the plant from creating new growth and forces it into dormancy. This resting period acts as rejuvenation to the rose plants. Continue watering until the fall and winter rains come. By keeping the debris clear around roses, it keeps the fungal spores and wintering insects at bay. Strip the roses of dried and withered leaves before they fall for easier cleanup. Cut out any spindly or crossed growth now to save time when you do your major pruning later at the end of winter. You can change location for roses now if you are careful, but be sure and prepare the hole ahead of time and check for drainage, a key to growing wonderful roses. They say the mood enhancing aroma of roses can lift the spirits like no other perfume, so consider having roses near windows or where you sit.
  
Speaking of fragrance, consider that fragrant plants add another dimension to your garden almost as strong as the visual beauty of flowers. Add fragrant plants near a door, under a window, on the patio, or along a walkway. Try some easy to grow scented geraniums, the smells of which can remind you of roses, nutmeg, apples, peppermint, chocolate mint, lemon and other citrus. Herbs along the pathway that one can brush against to release the aroma is also a great idea, try growing mint in a container as it can get very weedy and take over a garden plot. Try some of the following plants for fragrance: osmanthes, daphne, star jasmine, clematis, viburnum, pittosporum, azaleas, sage, gardenia, abelia, butterfly bush, chamomile, basil, catnip, phlox, lilies, sweet peas, and tuberose. I was recently at a  friend’s house in fairfax and he had plectranthus growing now in full bloom, a great perennial for the fall.
  
One of my most loyal readers has a predominantly shade garden, so some research netted the following plants to grow in the shade: ground covers such as epimedium, bergenia, moneywart, purple winter creeper, pachysandra, annuals such as browallia, foxglove, sweet alyssum, bulbs such as grape hyancinth, woodland lily, and lily of the valley, perennials such as bleeding heart, helleborus, corydallis, hosta and violets.
  
November is also a great time to check your tools to make sure they are sharp and ready to go when you need them. You may contact me at macro6096@hotmail.com. 

Mary, John and >^..^<  >^..^<

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