Something in the Air

The blue area is a frost warning

Autumn was in the air this morning.  The calendar says there is still another week of summer but it has not felt like summer for several weeks.  Moreover, there is a frost advisory tonight for the Worcester Hills (some 40 miles northwest of here).  If there’s frost about, it’s definitely no longer summer.

In our vegetable garden, the corn has been pulled and the green beans (and the bean beetles – good riddance!) are just a memory.  Zucchini that grew from a flower to a baseball bat in three days now takes a week or longer to become picking size.  Tomatoes and eggplant continue to ripen but no longer get larger.  The winter squash is ready to pick.  Only the leafy greens are happy with this weather.

The maple across the street
has turned color prematurely

Most of the trees on the property still have that voluptuous, late summer look but, here and there, the leaves have started to turn.  There’s a diseased maple across the street that has turned color prematurely.  One of our itea ‘Henry Garnet’ is getting a jump on the season, with a quarter of the plant already speckled with red and orange.  At the rear of our property an ash is also dropping yellow leaves – on schedule.

The hummingbirds have departed.  Just a week ago they were dive-bombing one another at our feeder in some senseless ‘if-I-can’t-have-it-then-neither-can-you’ ritual that must be programmed into their DNA.  Hummingbirds know when the fat lady is warming up in the wings.

Yellow ash leaves - on schedule

The hostas are turning yellow.  They’ll turn to yellow mush with that first frost, and those hostas that wish to go out with a semblance of dignity are doing their thing now.  Presumably with the expectation (valid) that Betty or I will cut them down in the next few days.

Itea 'Henry Garnet'
getting a jump on
autumn color

Just as there is a point in March or April for ‘firsts’, now is the beginning of the time for ‘lasts’.  I have re-directed the fill valves on our rain barrels; when they’re empty they’ll be put away.  I weed-whacked the community garden this morning, knowing it was for the last time this season.  I’ll take up the soaker hoses, clean them, and put them away for another year’s duty.

It’s not a melancholy time – far from it.  Apple picking has started and we’ll be headed out to get a bushel of Macouns next week.  Autumn brings its own excitement in New England.  I’m ready.

The Early Autumn Container Garden

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a container garden planted in May will, by the end of summer, be a sad-looking vestige of its spring glory. Sometimes, though, a lot of pruning and reasonable choice of plant material can yield a container that holds its own right into the autumn.

As noted in previous posts, Betty created something like fifty container gardens this spring. Some of them are necessarily ephemeral: lobelia is going to disappear with the summer heat no matter how much water and shade it is given. Salvia is going to get leggy. Also, some plants are thugs and will take over a container, relentlessly pushing out less aggressive specimens.

But some containers come through the season looking terrific. These photos, taken today (September 8), are of gardens that went through a torrid July and August yet survived looking, if not exactly like grown-up versions of their May incarnations, at least attractive. They were kept well watered and were pinched back regularly.  Double-click on any of them to get a full-page photo.

There are a pair of cast-iron urns by the front door that greet visitors. The dominant plant in the containers is a coleus ‘Pele’, a slow grower that never bolted. The terrific grass is a pennisetum ‘Fireworks’ that is still of a manageable size after nearly four months. The fragrant nemesia ‘Sunsation’ is somewhat the worse for wear but the strawberry vine that cascades down the side of the urn has looked great all summer. As a tip to container gardeners, Betty offers the advice that there should be an insulating layer between the metal of the urn and the soil inside it.

Many containers were moved over the course of the season, most often to fill in holes in various flower beds. One such is visible directly in front of the urn. There, a strobilanthes ‘Persian Shield’ provides a dramatic burst of purple and black, augmenting a heliotrope ‘Fragrant Delight’. At the base is a nice fringe of Dusty Miller (Senecio cineraria). As an aside, on the steps to the right is a light green and very fuzzy plecanthrus. Early in the season, it became home to a large frog which created a pleasant (to a frog) damp hidey-hole in the plant’s root mass. We’ve left it alone all season. The frog is still happily ensconced and doesn’t mind being periodically doused.

If I kept better track of tags, I could more fully identify the plants in the other containers pictured. One of the highlights of the garden is the grouping of five containers (at right) that soften a corner of our home. There’s an arborvitae ‘Berckmans Golden’ in a tall terra cotta pot. A smaller, identically shaped container holds a coleus ‘Kingswood Torch’ and a ‘Marguerite’ sweet potato vine (Ipomoea). Three more pots offer a variety of accent plants ranging from succulents to a trailing, nicely scented petunia. The vine behind the containers is a clematis ‘Virgin’s Bower’ that blooms in September.