Mums and Fall Magic

Chrysanthemums are the fall flower... once the nights are cool, it's time to plant mums in the garden. Some of our customers wonder why their mums don't make it through the winter, however, so here's a tip to help keep your mums hardy: keep watering them after they finish blooming, and don't cut the foliage down before next spring.

Most people forget that mums have a small root system and dry up quickly. Once the flowers have faded and we've turned off the hoses in the garden, it's easy to forget that the roots of recently planted mums will dry within five days. Mark it on your calendar to water these plants every five days, and those chrysanthemums will be growing roots right into November. Once the ground starts to freeze, or in mid-December, you can stop watering.

Another trick to keeping mums alive through the winter is to leave the stems in place even after the foliage has dried. Cut these stems back to the ground in March, and watch for the new foliage in April.

In addition to mums, be sure to include some of the other plants that are available. There are many beautiful Heucheras in Proven Winners' Fall Magic collection, for example, and they are magic indeed! Celebrate the season with some new, colorful plants for your garden!

Nepeta 'Six Hills Giant'

If you want a low-maintenance perennial that is absolutely spectacular in June, plant some Nepeta 'Six Hills Giant' in your garden. This catmint grows best in full sun, and gets about two feet tall and three feet wide. 'Six Hills Giant' blooms most heavily in June and early July, but if you shear it in half after that flush of flowers winds down the plant will produce many smaller flowers for the rest of the summer. Alternatively, you can cut the plant to the ground in mid-July and it will produce a low mound of fresh, attractive foliage that will attractive well into the fall.

Like most perennials, this Nepeta looks best when planted in groups of three or more. Combine it with the later-flowering Russian sage and grasses to create gardens beautiful lavender blue flowers and wind-blown textures all summer.

Damp Weather Woes!

Anyone who lives on Cape Cod will tell you: it seems as if it's been cloudy and damp forever. Our plants are longing for the sun, and many of them are prone to all sorts of fungal or rust problems in this weather. Blackspot on roses, mildew on squash and rust on the hollyhocks are all likely to show up soon. Yikes! 

Two products offer protection or treatment for these problems: Serenade and GreenCure. Both are approved for organic gardening, so they may be safely used on edible plants as well as your ornamentals. Serenade contains Bacillus subtilis,  a natural microorginism that has been used for years to suppress fungi and rusts. GreenCure is made of potassium bicarbonate with a spreader-sticker added to hold the product on the plants. The potassium bicarbonate kills existing mildew and helps to prevent new outbreaks.

This gardener has used Serenade to keep the rust on her hollyhocks at bay: if you've had a problem with hollyhock rust, start to spray early next year and be sure to coat the stems and underneath the leaves. 

These products, like all fungicides, should be applied according to directions and are most effective when used before the plants have a problem. So this year use them as soon as possible, but next year begin to spray as soon as the plants break dormancy.