If a polygonatum falls in the forest…

Solomon Seal is probably my favourite shade tolerant perennial.  It has graceful arching stems with beautiful, dainty hanging flowers in spring that bees love; the leaves stay dark green all summer; it’s extremely drought tolerant and, in the autumn, everything turns first deep yellow then a beautiful orange/tan before leaves and sometimes whole stems collapse to the ground.

I never ‘clean up’ this garden  – I let everything decompose as it falls.  And then I wait for the new shoots to poke through this natural mulch and start the cycle again.

 

Polygonatum biflorum with its June flowers

Transformation

Perennials Do It Too!

Woodland Sunflower (Helianthus divaricatus) – I love seeing the green vein skeleton as chlorophyll slowly withdraws from the leaves.

This is the time of year everyone on the eastern part of North America – and anywhere else there’s woods and forests with deciduous trees – goes gaga over fall foliage.  Folks take road trips to the country or the hills wherever they may be to take it all in, and Instagram, blogs and Facebook pages are chock a block with images of gorgeous reds, oranges and yellows.

With all the hullabaloo about the trees and some shrubs (I start drooling when I see some Viburnums in late October)  the changing colours of perennial leaves often go unnoticed.  Maybe this is because, low to the ground, they don’t stand out amongst fallen maple or oak leaves.  Maybe folks are so busy looking out and up at the trees they don’t take the time to look down.  Maybe it’s because a lot of people ‘clean up’ their flower beds – cutting back foliage before it has a chance to display the subtle and oh so temporary slendour that can be just as gasp-worthy as a Staghorn Sumac.  Here are a few examples from my garden.

Who could have anticipated Goldenrod (Solidago sp.) leaves would turn such a lovely red… certainly not all of them do; more often than not they just turn brown and wither away but this year quite a few are truly beautiful.  Perhaps it’s a specific variety that is spreading around.

Solomon Seal (Polygonatum biflorum) will get even yellower before the leaves finally just fall off, leaving a forest of stalks over winter.

Pale Purple Coneflower (Echinacea pallida), below left, and Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), below right,  have different shaped flowers and leaves – but both turn a beautiful orange/red, pallida sooner than purpurea.

After the flower heads turn brown and the fleshy leaves dry and fall off, it’s the stalks of Sedum spectabile that turn a glowing rosy pink.

There’s more of course.  Hosta.  Some Geranium.  Siberian Iris.

What are your favourite perennials for fall foliage colour?
Temporary

A Last Hurrah

There’s not much left blooming in the garden these last few days in October – the only thing looking halfway decent are the patches of sweet Alyssum.  The huge Zinnias, colourful Cannas and even the merry Marigolds are either withering away with the cold nights or had to be pulled to make way for bulb planting.  (I know – a lot of people really hate Marigolds.  I, on the other hand, really LOVE them and grow them every year; next year’s seeds are already dried and waiting in tiny envelopes for April germination.)

There are still a few delightful surprises though.

This white Iris is STILL blooming!!!!!  There’s a half dozen flower stalks and a few buds left that have survived our light frost.  Amazing!!!

I took a few Gaillarda (Blanket Flower) seedheads off a rocky slope in Toronto’s Tommy Thompson Park many many years ago, and have tried to grow them all over the property.  Not surprisingly, the only place they have really thrived and come back year after year is on a similar rocky slope!  No compost, leaf mould, mulch or watering wanted!  They bloom non stop from mid summer until…

I bought a little 10 cm pot of Shasta Daisies last spring and, stupidly, tried to make two plants by splitting it down the middle.  Neither half was happy.  They appeared to just wither away over the course of the season.  I left them alone though and this year, with no coaxing and quite by surprise, they came up bigger and better.  Also a surprise is how short this variety is – a reminder to NEVER throw away plant tags until I’ve recorded everything written! 

I have no idea what variety of Veronica this is (again with the tag!!!) – last year it was a ground hugging rosette of leaves that spread quite a bit.  This year it threw up tall spikes and then the little flowers, a perfect blue, started to appear and bloom, from the bottom up.  It’s been three months now!  And they’re still attracting the last desperate bees needing to top off before winter.

Finally, another Veronica – Whitley’s Speedwell.  It holds a special place in my heart because the original small clump was given me by a dear lady in Toronto many many years ago.  A large patch of it was growing up a slope by the sidewalk in front of her house and I admired it year round.  Its original spot in my garden is still going strong and growing year by year.  It’s generally drought tolerant (I’ve never watered it) although last year by the end of the summer drought only the fringes survived (it all grew back this year).   But I’m really impressed by my new patch – started with just four hand-full’s pulled up from the original, it has now filled in to border the side patio.

AND – the best part – it’s evergreen.  ALSO the best part is this new patch flowered en masse as usual in the spring but continued to send up dozens of individual, tiny blooms all year.  Last week, for some reason, it just burst out again with hundreds of flowers.  Weird and wonderful!

Veronica Whitley’s Speedwell

A Glow that Attracts…

This is one of the reasons I love the bright yellow glow of Goldenrod (Solidago sp.) and one of the reason I cut it back in early summer — to encourage late season flowers to help feed a multitude of pollinators.  How many can you spot?

Glow

Autumn 2017

Last Day of Summer…

Here in the County September has been even more lovely than usual. The vacationers have mostly gone home, beaches are clean and quiet, it’s been sunny every day and the temperatures have been in the mid to high twenties – warmer than most weeks this past summer!

Perfect for people – a bit too dry for the garden though. Every morning, it seems, a long ‘branch’ from one of the tall sunflowers breaks off – too weak, without water, to carry the growing weight of expanding seeds. The Hostas and Hemerocallis (Daylilies) are starting to wither away; leaves from several tree species are turning brown and falling. Everything is looking really, really, droopy. And although temperatures are due to fall back to normal soon, there’s no appreciable rain in the 14 day forecast. Just when trees and shrubs need it to shore up strength in anticipation of winter dormancy.

Although I’ve been enjoying these languid days, swimming in Lake Ontario after an hour or two of relaxed yard work, small creature activity in the garden has become somewhat frenetic as bees and butterflies try to capture as much nectar and pollen as they can before it’s too late. I’ve been fascinated, in particular, by the Swallowtail butterflies this year. Far more numerous than I can ever recall, their wings are divided so that, unlike a monarch that will land and sit still while feasting, the front half of a Swallowtail wing flutters continuously while the bottom half seem to remain motionless. This habit makes them appear to be forever on the move, anxious to move onto the next Zinnia or Echinacea bloom.

Looking forward to some rain (and who thought anyone around here would be saying that, after our record breaking spring and early summer rainfalls!) and wishing you a slow luxurious fall into the colder months.