This is the time of year that the weather finally relaxes a bit. The days are shorter and cooler, the rain begins to fall and our plants have one last push before they go dormant for winter. I treat this time of year as if it’s our second spring. We get a lot of planting done this time of year in our garden and with our landscape company. It is so much easier on you and the plants during this time since the temperatures have cooled and rain is likely to occur every few days. Planting evergreens and trees this time of year allows the plants roots to settle in to the ground while the the top part of the plant isn’t getting shocked by the heat. The ground is still warm enough to get a little root growth before plant shuts down to renew its energy and to protect itself from the colder temperatures. They will awaken next spring to cooler temps and some rain, slowly hardening off to the heat that comes next. This is the time to bite the bullet and pull those spring bedding plants and replace them with hardy winter annuals. I have slowly, begrudgingly been pulling the spring plants out of our big show beds in the front of our garden center running along highway 51 and replacing them with this years choice. I started pulling plants from the bottom of parts of the beds and working my way up hoping no one would notice. Over the weeks during October I pulled the cascading vinca that gave their all for the highway 51 commuters. I replaced them first with Everillo Carex spotted out about every 2 feet while our pansies were being planted in the greenhouses.
This Carex is heat and winter hardy so my hope is to leave them planted next spring as I replace the lemon cream pansies with whatever next springs choice will be. Carex is an evergreen grass that gets about 18 inches tall and wide. Their foliage is bright chartreuse and can perform well in part shade. The reason I’m using these is that it allows me to use fewer bedding plants and the contrasting colors and textures are a very neat and clean look. The gold Carex and the lemon cream pansies are a lot of yellow which I chose because I believe it will be nice when winter arrives and things begin to look gloomy. My rye grass in front of the bed is thick and green like Easter basket grass. Because of all the yellow I backed them up with bronze snap dragons , dusty miller and finally dark purple Redbor Kale. Tucked in around all this are next springs foxgloves. Foxgloves planted this time of year will just grow big plants all winter long then start budding and blooming early next spring. Mimi and I started planting pansies, snapdragons and Icelandic Poppies at our house early in the season so everything would be perfect for the wedding we had earlier in October So we are mostly finished at home. On the highway bed I still have one more layer of gorgeous coleus in about 6 colors and the upright vinca that are next to be traded out. Since the weather cooperated as if it was a second spring they covered me while my young plants matured. I am seriously considering doing an all Caladiums bed mixed with the existing Carex for the spring bed. It turns out that Caladiums will take a lot more sun than I realized so it should be a great show.
Speaking of Caladiums, I wrote earlier in the year that I was going to plant the Caladiums later than usual and provide lots of nitrogen through my compost to see if they would last longer into the fall for the wedding. It turns out that it makes no difference at all. As long as we cleaned the spent leaves and kept them irrigated with our nutrient rich pond water they performed perfectly. As the days starting getting shorter they began to decline some but not so much that they weren’t the show stealers at the big event. I bumped into one of our favorite customers at our fall festival in October who asked me how that came out and he turned me on to a new- to- me variety of Caladium that he had been growing called Frog In A Blender. You can imagine the colors by that name, green and white swirls. After seeing the pictures of his that may be the one I use on the highway bed next spring. Mimi and I decided to try to overwinter our 400 Caladiums bulbs. We have dug them up with pitch forks so we would damage them less. We cut the tops off and shook most of the soil off the bulbs. They are now on a tarp going through a 2 to 4 week drying process with a big fan keeping the air moving so we dont get any molds during the process. When the bulbs are dry enough we will pack them in bulb crates surrounded by shreded news paper and stack them somewhere dry and moderately Warm, at least not cold. The bulbs were noticeably larger and had produced some more smaller bulbs, so far it’s been easy enough and worth it. They are going to have to get moved from my bay of the garage since I want to park my truck there during these wetter weeks. We have decided to move them to the upstairs loft of the barn where there is a nice cross breeze passing through up there.
Because of the big event in our back yard in October I decide to grow from seed some plants that meant a lot to us and Max. I stared sowing seeds in September so they would possibly be blooming for showtime. I planted plants that aren’t all winter hardy but normally used as early spring color. We planted Nasturtiums, Lupines, Scarlet Runner Bean, Sweet Peas, Cosmos, Larkspur, dwarf Sunflowers and Marigolds. They all bloomed on time except the Sunflowers, they are opening up today, two weeks late, can’t win them all. Some of those plants will get zapped the first time we get a frost, the color has been worth it and I planted foxgloves under them so that they will be there when these plants go down in the next few weeks. My fall blooming vines are my favorite blooms that we had going on this fall. We built an arch walkway that formed a center aisle down the middle of our vegetable garden. They are covered with blooming Mexican Flame vine, Firecacker vine, Coral Bean and blue Thumbergia. Some of these vines will return next year from seed and some will return from their roots and some may not show back up at all. After last nights walk we have decided to provide more structure for more vines.
Part of my reason to grow all of these plants from seed was so I would get more practice at being successful with seeding practices. I plan to convert one our smaller greenhouses into a seeding chamber. I will make this low profile greenhouse nice and snug for seeding during the winter months. With the short days I will need to add some supplemental lighting and some heat pads for the seed trays to sit on so the seeds will germinate. I will have one section of the greenhouse blocked off for a chamber that will provide total darkness and warmth. Some smaller seeds can barely get covered with soil to germinate but still require total darkness so the chamber will provide that and the heat pads will allow the soil temperatures to be conducive to germination. It will be important to keep a sharp eye on those seedlings so that very soon after they have germinated and broken ground they will get pulled out of the darkness and put into light so they can begin to develop true leaves and a root system that will prepare them for transplanting into bigger pots. This will be new and fun for me and we will be able to produce more plants that aren’t normally easy to find in the plant market. So far I have 39 varieties of herbs beyond the basic stuff found at most garden centers. I am pretty sure I am going to plant our 4 inch pot vegetable plants instead of buying them from somewhere else. That way I can get into more heirlooms and hard to find veggies, beyond the basics. John will still produce the fabulous plants that he has been for years but now we will work together to provide some new and interesting bedding plants like different Amaranths and Quinoa and others that are usually offered just in seed racks. Beyond the basics.
It is raining seed catalogues at our house and that has led to a lot of exciting and interesting conversations between all us growers at Garden Works. It has also led Mimi into the wild world of bulbs, one day last month hundreds of dollars worth of bulbs showed up at our door. We had no choice but to get them planted and find out for ourselves how the bulb world works. We are not familiar with the timing and placement of bulbs so, like with everything, we decide to jump in with both feet so we can begin the learning process. When we find the best bulbs for our area from these experiments we will start selling them. We just have not experienced much in the bulb world so we are about to unveil the mystery for ourselves. Last Sunday we planted hundreds of Ranunculus (3 colors), Fritillaria, Daffodils, Bearded Iris, Anemones,Yellow Foxtail Lillies, Aliums and daylillies. We saved our Tulip bulbs for a little later, That much I did know from my working in the Tulip fields in Holland back in the 80’s. We have hundreds more on their way. Still to come are Astilbe, several colors of Cannas, several types of Dahlias, Ligularia ‘The Rocket’, Calla Lillies, Gladiolus, Oxalis, Alocasias and Crocosmias. Beyond the norm.
As far as right now goes we have unloaded our Christmas trees once again. This year Ben is going to set up our tree sales area in a new place that we think will make shopping for the perfect tree easier. Since we took up the entire front part of our property with pottery and fountains where the trees normally go Ben was forced to figure out where we could shuck Christmas trees. I think the spot that he created is going to be great and convenient. There is a covered, well lit area just as you walk down the ramp towards our bedding plant area, the same place where we shucked pumpkins from this fall. Ben has figured it out once again! That same area is to become our new shade plant area next spring so we have essentially doubled our bedding plant area by opening up this area.
All of this is happening around the renovations that we are in the middle of at the moment.
The crew that is doing the work have been great and have kept the area clean and orderly while they have worked on changing the siding out on those greenhouses. Mimi coincidentally chose a look that will be somewhat similar to the colors and style of the new Top Golf that is visible from our front door of Garden Works. We are excited to be so close to the Top Golf development and all the traffic from all over that will come along with it. People will come to Ridgeland to play the game, they will eat in our restaurants, stay in our hotels and shop at our businesses. Ridgeland has nailed it once again, it is a perfect fit to go along with the healthy choices in our town. We have extensive walking trails, workout facilities on every corner, healthy eating options and wonderful roads for biking on, we are behind it 100 percent. Beyond the norm.
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