Gardening : Planting Needn’t Fall Off This Time of Year
I always wish I could be someplace cool, like Mendocino or Colorado, during the sweltering, smoggy month of September, but I can’t because the kids are back in school and it’s the start of another gardening season. Despite appearances, it’s autumn out there.
A timetable for fall
It takes people awhile to figure out that our fall is actually spring, when it comes to planting. Almost everything does better planted in the fall, and caring for new plants is so much easier in the cooling weather than in the escalating heat of spring.
There are so many things you can plant in the fall that some kind of Day Runner is necessary--so let me suggest a schedule.
Begin by planting cool-season vegetables and any fall-blooming bulbs. All the cole crops, but especially Brussels sprouts, grow much faster planted early in the fall (and actually, you could have planted most last month). Lettuce, carrots, beets, garlic and spinach are other examples of cool-season crops to plant now in anticipation of the cooler weather ahead.
Several crocus, including my favorites--the rather rare and dainty Crocus goulimyi and the pretty and useful saffron crocus--are examples of fall-blooming bulbs, as are the South African nerines and naked ladies, Amaryllis belladonna .
These two crocus, by the way, come back year after year in my garden, even multiplying, but then that shouldn’t be too big a surprise since they’re both from the Mediterranean, the former discovered in southern Greece only in 1954. Now found in several mail-order bulb catalogues, Burkards Nurseries in Pasadena has carried this bulb in the past.
Next, put in any cool-season annual flowers you want blooming by the winter holidays, when those guests from the East Coast come to visit. The Arboretum of L.A. County has found that calendulas, pansies, Iceland poppies and stock do best planted in September, surviving the occasional week or two of sizzling weather.
That should keep you busy this month, and when the weather really begins to cool in October and November, you can plant any new trees, shrubs, ground covers, even lawns. That’s also the time to plant most bulbs and perennials.
Late in November is when I like to plant drought-resistant things, including all California natives and wildflowers, although this usually drags on into December and even January because days become so short. Planting this late actually works out rather well since, with any luck, Mother Nature quickly takes over the watering chores as the first rains arrive.
Thinking of shrinking the lawn?
If you’ve decided, like I do almost every year, that too much of the garden is occupied by lawn and there’s not enough room for fun stuff like flowers, this is the month to kill off sections of lawn in preparation for planting something else.
Roundup is my chosen weapon, and it’s just about the only chemical I use in the garden because it has a clean environmental record and it’s really the only way to get rid of Bermuda and other grasses that creep along underground.
It’s a systemic, so the spray does nothing to the soil but is moved from the leaves to the roots, inside the plant. If you follow the directions precisely--watering the lawn in advance to get it growing and then spraying on a day that promises to be hot (just about any day in September)--it kills even the deepest roots in about a week.
Once the grass turns brown, you can slice it off, prepare the soil and plant, because there are no chemicals in the soil. Just be sure not to let the spray drift onto plants you might want to keep.
I’ve been chiseling away at my lawn for years, so the back now measures only 8 by 20 feet, just enough to picnic on.
‘Plant of the Year’
I should know better than to pronounce a new plant a winner after growing it for only a year, but I’m going out on that limb and making an award.
I first saw Salvia sinaloensis in David Frost’s garden next to his Native Sons Nursery, a wholesale grower in Arroyo Grande (your nursery can order plants from him). They stood out by being in full flower in the fall in the shade of coast live oaks, while getting by with almost no water in deference to the oaks.
Candidates for dry shade are almost nonexistent and the few usually recommended, like our native coral bells, have their moments but stumble through the rest of the year looking like they need a drink.
I put two blooming plants in a shady border I intend to keep dry, and one year later, they’re still blooming, without even pausing to catch their breath.
This scentless sage from Sinaloa, Mexico, has looked picture perfect since I planted it, bristling with spikes of small but bright magenta-purple flowers seen against deep, glossy green foliage.
They’re in a good rich soil, so I’ve watered them only twice all summer; yet they’ve grown into three-foot balls. Although they get no direct sun, they do grow in bright shade, not deep shade like under an avocado.
I can only mark them down on form, because, frankly, they have none. While always looking tidy, they never look particularly neat because the rather lax branches grow every which way, and they are easily broken off by dogs or careless hose dragging. But who cares? This new salvia still gets a 10 in my garden.
Times Garden Editor Robert Smaus has been chosen as “Horticulturist of the Year” by the Southern California Horticultural Society.
