October 2013
Autumn Garden
Debbie Teashon
I love a clean slate in the garden! I opened up an area just in time for fall planting by removing low growing evergreen honeysuckle shrubs (Lonicera pileata) and an unnamed peony. I also took the opportunity to plant perennials and annuals to make a beautiful autumn garden. What fun it was to once again play with kale, asters, and Swiss chard! I added another low growing honeysuckle—Lonicera ‘Twiggy’, which will add a golden evergreen presence year round.
I installed a few flagstones to stand on when working in the garden, and stacked a short cairn on top of one of the stones. Once everything was planted, I topped the soil with coffee grounds and bark mulch. By spring, the earthworms should have worked the coffee grounds into the soil, a much-needed renewal after a few years of neglect in this area. Since it's October, I drug my skeletons out of the closet—flamingo skeletons, that is—for a little garden playfulness.
A Stewartia psuedocamellia tree will eventually shade this bed out; but for now, the bed basks in full sun. Ultimately, ferns and other shade tolerant plants will cover this ground, so I consider almost everything in this bed transitional until the shade takes over. Out comes the kale and Swiss chard in spring, and in their place I will plant some fun annuals amongst the perennials. For now, I want to keep this area experimental with more front-of-the-border size annuals—with Salvia viridis being one of the first.
Following the photos are a list of plants in this garden area.
Plant List
New plantings are bolded.
Agastache 'Golden Jubilee' (hyssop)
Allium schubertii (ornamental onion)
Armeria maritima 'Rubrifolia' (sea thrift)
Aster 'Daydream'
Aster 'Yomagic'
Brassica (tall bicolor) (ornamental kale)
Brassica 'Purple Peacock' (ornamental kale)
Brassica (Tuscan black kale)
Beta vulgaris 'Bright Lights' (Swiss chard)
Camellia
Chamaecyparis nootkatensis 'Jubilee' (Jubilee weeping Alaskan cedar)
Chimonanthus praecox var. luteus (wintersweet)
Gentiana velchlorum 'Goetterdaemmerung' (gentian)
Heuchera 'Snow Angel' (coral bells)
Heuchera 'Midnight Fire' (coral bells)
Lonicera 'Twiggy' (shrub honeysuckle)
Sedum 'Autumn Joy'
Sedum oreganum
Viola 'Tiger Eyes' (pansies)
You may be interested in watching this short, fun video: Creepy-crawly World.
Gardening for the Homebrewer: Grow and Process Plants for Making Beer, Wine, Gruit, Cider, Perry, and More
By co-authors Debbie Teashon (Rainy Side Gardeners) and Wendy Tweton
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