"The Garden in Autumn"

An excerpt from "The Garden in Autumn" by Allen Lacy. He writes of the negelected season.

"About autumn and gardens, in the horticulture version of what John Kenneth Galbraith called the conventional wisdom, there is a peculiar and widespread notion that spring and summer are the gardening seasons, and that autumn brings everything to an end, except for chrysanthemums. Autumn means watching the leaves turn briefly vivid in the woods and on hillsides, and it means listening to the roar of the crowds and the blare of the marching bands at a Saturday afternoon football game at the high school a couple of blocks away. It is the time when geese honk overhead as they migrate south in search of food and a gentle winter climate. It is the time of pumpkins ripening in the fields and then of jack-o-lanterns on front porches. For gardeners, however, autumn is all too often little more than a season of chores. We must rake our leaves and haul them to the compost heap. We must tidy up the perennial beds and cut back annuals as they blacken with frost. We must kneel down in the dirt and plant the crocuses and daffodils and tulips that will brighten our spirits in spring. We must clean and oil out hoes and sharpen our pruning shears and put them away in shed or garage until their time comes round again. Autumn marks the end of the gardening year.

For too many of us, everything I have said holds true. Our autumn gardens look sad and forlorn while we labor with the chores. But it need not be so at all. Many of us have learned to be springtime and summertime gardeners only, paying almost no heed to fall. We may, with somewhat greater difficulty, learn to be autumn gardeners as well. A garden can be at its very best in autumn-a proposition I mean to demonstrate by exploring the plants of autumn. Certainly, in most of America, the best time to be in the garden is in the fall, even if its only to do the chores. It is a kinkly season, and a forgiving one, with its own special rhythms. Although the nights grow steadily cooler longer, the soil cools down more gradually, still holding summer hostage. It warms our hands and souls as we work in it. The summer may have been humid and sweltering, but in autumn it becomes a pleasure to go outside and work. There may be some chilly days, and even on warm ones a passing cloud may momentarily come between us and the sun, but when it moves on and the sun's rays strike our cheeks once again, summer returns, except that the heat is much more welcome than it was in July."

It was after reading this book that I saw the wisdom of using autumn as a grand finale. By thoughtful planning, the autumn garden can have just as much color as spring or summer. Nothing is more disheartening than a garden that is finished by the end of July. The end of July is when my garden is starting to wake. The Buddleja, Guara, Cleome, warm season grasses, the tall 'Mexican' Salvias, colorful annuals, and more are beginning to stand out. It is what is last visualized that is last remembered. I like my garden to go out with a bang.

I love Allen Lacy's writing - have this book and would like to get some of the others. Around here, autumn has come to mean letting the golden rod bloom, and the native asters. I've also discovered that annuals planted late add color to my autumn gardens, (and confuse people into thinking I'm a genius with plants!). To be honest, this year I have more in bloom now than earlier when it was so dog gone hot. And I've added some nice little mums, a Purple Dome aster in a space not big enough for the big wild New England asters. The Magic Fountain delphiniums are putting up flower stalks again, my autumn crocus are prequelling spring and the Helleborus niger have dozens of bud just at ground level waiting for the cooler weather. The pinks and verbena are still blooming, and the pansies have come back in the cooler temps. the daisies I cut back are in blossom, the Golden Glow rudbeckia are putting on a show above the golden rod in the side yard and the moth mullien sport yellow flowers in the morning. I have sedums and butterfly glads, hollyhocks and malvas and perennial snapdragons in bloom, along with the pelargoniums, osteopermums and arctotis in the raise bed under the bedroom window. I am quite flush with bloom! AND it all looks pretty good because I've had time to catch up with the weeds!

Thanks for the tip on planting annuals late. Good idea. Most annuals are easy from seed, so they can be started anytime.

kathleen your garden sounds wonderful. i too have quite a bit in bloom. my dinner plate dahlia's are gorgeous and peek through the rhododendrum like a flowering shrub, the cleome are tall and elegant and are almost reaching the tops of the schrubs along the drive. and so much more. i'm sure glad i like to deadhead, more flowers is my motto. :)

Golddog, I also love Allan Lacy's writing. I have year-round flowers, but to be honest, with so many trees, pulling all the leaves out of the beds makes me wish I had fewer autumn flowering plants, not more. I have learned the hard way that if I leave the fallen leaves on the ground more than a few days, the flowers vanish anyway from slugs. They have to be pulled out by hand around all the flowers :( Very time-consuming. And very gross :(