Finally October has shown up on the map. I dream all summer about the day that I can roll that calendar page over to my favorite month of the year. A lot goes on this month in our yards and just in life generally. For one thing this is the weekend of the Fondren Bottle Tree And Garden Tour on the 5th and 6th. This will be the third annual tour that I don’t want to miss. That should also be the first of some very busy weekends at our garden center while people are getting their houses and businesses ready for fall. Getting ready for fall means decorating our places with all that fall has to offer. There are more than just pumpkins to work with these days. If you look around the grocery stores you wouldn’t know that there is much more than 7 dollar small jack-o-lanterns to work with. Go to a garden center or a produce stand to see what’s out there available to us now. You will find some of the most interesting gourds and pumpkins like the ones used in high fashion magazines to make a space even better. We have white pumpkins, blue gourds, red toppers, giant buckskin colored ones and all kinds of wild colors and shapes to work with. There are bundles of corn stalks and wheat straw bales that pair well together.
Putting together these ingredients can go as wild as your imagination can take it, or if you don’t feel like you trust yourself to be able to throw one together we will help you pick out your psychedelic menagerie of colors and shapes, it’s fun to get it home and recreate your fall decoration in a way that it fits your style. While you are at the garden center you might as well pick up your colorful mums that can also fit into the fall decorations. We have been growing our own mums at Garden Works since 1994. The numbers of mums that we grow is on the decline, I guess folks have had enough of the same ole same ole. It seems like the mum season has crashed slap into pansy season. Pansies have so many great colors to choose from and they are a much better buy. The mums bloom time is over way before the pansies wrap it up next spring, you get about 6 weeks from start to finish with mums. They are very vibrant and make quite a statement, they shout FALL IS HERE! We will always have mums available because they are very traditional but I think next year we will add a few new things to the big pot of color for the front porch plant roster that we have been experimenting with. When we were at the Denver Botanical Gardens this past summer we got inspired to offer some plants that we think would make good sense as far as something that gives that big, bold color like a mum but something that you will get a little more bang for your buck. I believe that Sedum Autumn Joy would look great in our big terra cotta colored plastic pots. They are very interesting plants even before they begin to bud up with their thick and fleshy foliage. When the abundant buds begin to appear they start off green and slowly over the summer and fall months they slowly turn brick red. Sedum is a great plant to use in pots because pots dry out much faster during these hot months than a plant rooted in the ground would. Sedum thrives in dry conditions so watering them daily as you would most other plants in pots becomes way less of a deal. I think another great one for pots in the summer and fall would be another Sedum called flapjacks.
During the fall months Flapjacks stacks up on itself, gets autumny colors and blooms with very interesting colors and shapes, again another plant that will allow you to slip away for a football weekend or a last minute beach trip without being awful upon your return because they too thrive in drier conditions. Another great one that our grower experimented with this year is one of the many new hybridized Rudbekias. They have the feel of an Indian Summer Rudbekia but the colors that we will be using are absolutely gorgeous with their yellow petals streaked in caramels and black. I love the idea of using these because they will stay blooming and showey for months with a little dead heading. These plants that I want to offer next year last for months instead of weeks. I planted good ole Rudbekia Indian Summer in the beds in front of the nursery on highway 51 this year. I diligently kept them deadheaded all summer long and they are still blooming with their shiny, happy faces. I plan to use the three of these plants in our highway plantings next spring to stir a little interest, what I plant up front usually turns out to be some of the plants that we sell the most of. It makes sense because bedding plants sold in plastic pots on our bedding plant tables look totally different from their fully grown versions of themselves.
When a person gets a chance to see a plant at its fully grown stage it is usually enough to make someone realize what they are looking at and it makes that person want one. We plan to shake up the Mississippi gardening world and offer more than just mums for that perfect pot by the front door, it’ll just last a lot longer. We are already trying to cut back on selling Kimberly Queen ferns because they are beginning to bore us to death. We are instead offering Farfugium or Tractor Seats. Tractor Seats are so much prettier than Kimberly Queen Ferns with their glossy, round foliage and will blooming bright yellow on 4 foot tall stalks around Christmas time. They are winter hardy perennials that can stay in the pot or can be planted out into the garden after the season, just wonderful plants.This October we are offering 4 kinds of Caryopteris for that very reason. They are in full bloom right now, they’ve been blooming for weeks already and won’t quit until we get a hard frost, usually early in December. The really great news is that they are perennials as are Mums and Sedums so when you are ready to move on they can be planted in the ground so they can come back to visit after winter releases it’s grip. On our website on the gardening blog I will have photos for you to see what these plants look like so you can start making plans to try something new. I have been retailing plants for for 42 years and I think I have finally grown weary of Mums, I’m really excited about this trial.
On to the main reason for this being my favorite month is pansies. The colors that we grow are mind blowing and the potential for great combinations is there wether they are combinations of colors that are contrasting or colors that are in the same vein. Pansies can make you look great as a gardener, they can be real showstoppers. The secret is getting them planted early enough before the ground cools off enough to get a really good root system and to do everything within your power to keep them on the dry side. Once pansies have established a healthy root system they are ready to take on old man winter. I have always believed that October 16 is the magic planting date. Usually that is a date that most of the plants available for fall planting are rooted out and ready. It is also not so late that the roots won’t have a hard time getting established. When a rootball is put into the wet, cold ground they just sit there really until things begin to warm up next spring when it’s time to be pulling them up for spring planting. The hardest part about planting pansies at the correct time is that you will have to bite the bullet and pull up your summer flowers as many of them are just grabbing a second wind and beginning to look great again with cooler temps and more rainfall. It’s worth it to look the other way and just do it, it is so worth it to get that show on the road that only pansies and Snapdragons can offer by introducing their roots to some warm soil. If you ever think it’s just too early remember we planted those same pansies back in September In our greenhouses in the full sun so they are hardened off to the October sun. It is also time to plant those plants that you want to see blooming in February and March such as Foxglove, Delphinium, wall flower, dianthus, and all the perennials for next spring arrival. Planting Foxgloves and Delphiniums and larkspur and Love In a Mist and Icelandic Poppies during mid October will ensure quite a surprising show during our bleakest of months.
I would suggest to you to begin your search now for the plants or the seeds if you have to so you can get them started before we begin seeing nights in the 50’s on a regular basis. Getting seeds direct planted in the ground to germinate gets harder the cooler it gets until it gets to the point that none of them will pop until next season when things begin to warm up into 60 degree nights again. Some of the plants that do well all winter will be easy enough to find but it is likely that you will have to plant seeds to get everything that you want. I am using seeds more and more because it opens up doors to plants that I want to experiment with. Let me tell you some of the seeds pop easily and some are a bit tricky so do your homework and plant more than you will need in case there are losses. In many instances the seedlings have to be thinned out after germination cutting way down on the number of seedlings you are left with after they’ve been thinned to a healthy distance from each other. There is so much to be learned when it comes to playing around with seeds and it is so gratifying when you are successful. Seeding is a very inexpensive hobby that can reap high rewards, there is lots of great information about seeding your own plants at Mississippi State website. The Mississippi extension service is there for all of us to use and you might be surprised at the amount of great information and inspiration offered from the people who know best when it comes to everything agriculture.
Another favorite thing of mine that happens in October is our Sip And Shop event called Plants Pumpkins and Pinot (The name says it all). On Friday October 18th the party starts at 4:00 and theoretically ends at 7:00 (HA!) so we can celebrate the fall season with our customers. We have Sip And Shops on and off during the year but the October one is the original one and our biggest of the year. We usually have a bluegrass band, eats and beverages while our parking lot gets stuffed with carloads of groups of friends that get together for this 9th annual event, it’s a relaxed atmosphere and a time to hang out with us and all of our regulars. It’s a great time to wander around our place and make a plan or make some purchases or just to saddle up to a table and relax and meet some new gardening friends. I hope with all these offerings plus all going on all over the state, the State Fair, music events and your own backyard fun that you can enjoy every last drop that Mississippi has to offer during this month of harvest and transition into slower moving days. Find your thing and go for it.
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