The September garden, it is true, cannot match the great burst of bloom that comes with the spring, from the first crocus, scillas and chionodoxas, on through the narcissus and tulips to the glorious splash of color the roses bring in June. Nevertheless there is much beauty around us – in some gardens actually more than at any other time of the year – and there is more yet to come. We have annuals in abundance, late flowering perennials, dahlias and the late planted gladiolus, and soon we’ll be edging into the chrysanthemums, And September’s possibilities, I dare say, are greater than even the most adventurous of us suspect.
A Succession Of Pictures
To me a garden is a succession of pictures, and for many years I have been devoted to the creation of vistas to and from the home. The idea behind this project is that, whatever the area of the garden in square feet or acres, it is enlarged and enhanced by the development of such vistas. With thoughtfulness, many plants can be so. placed that they are given an unsuspected “secondary” seasonal value.
Thus I think of a vista which focuses the attention on a plant of euonymus which, after flowering and then producing its not inconsiderable fruitage, turns a beautiful rich crimson. To show off this plant to the best advantage, we have transplanted other material and by so doing have opened a most desirable vista and at the same time have made full use of this treble-duty plant.
Then, again, why should the vegetable beds not be so placed and tended that, between background and approach, they are inherently agreeable and ornamental?
It will be observed that I am striving always toward what I may call the pictorial development of the garden. To be sure, I have been forced to do so by the varied contour of a “Breeze Hill” as well as by the fact that, as the years have gone by, great changes have occurred by reason of growth.
When I began to enjoy my plot of something more than two acres, it had few trees on it and none around it, so that I could garden for strawberries and currants as well as for the best vegetables, thinking only of those plants that need much of the kindly sun. But now that my little pie-shaped piece of ground has become surrounded by maples and tulip trees which I wanted there, I have seen how outside trees as well as interior trees steal both the view and the fertility of the soil.
Garden Devoted To Shade Plants
It took me a long time to accept this obvious situation, and I believe I became most reconciled to it when I visited a relatively small, similarly surrounded garden in Georgia where a great garden woman had accepted the shade and had devoted her garden to plants that desire shade. This common sense point of view has come to have a great effect on the development of my garden landscape, and, until God provides us with plants that are indifferent to sun, shade, or root interference, I shall have to keep on with my enforced education, to make the best I can of what I have where I am.
Considering Proportion Of Greenery
One of the things that this tree environment has forced upon me is an arrangement of the interior planting such as to take into consideration the proportion of greenery that I am to have. By taking into account these differences, and also the very desirable interference that occurs as apples, pears and even American persimmons intervene to give color variation, I can keep on making my pictures to and from the home.
I have been deeply impressed with the variation one can obtain by disregarding the conventional and easily obtained shrubs, so that instead of the monotony of Spirea vanhouttei and Hydrangea paniculata Pegee there occurs the interposition of many bivurnums, some of them of the snowball type, and the occasional introduction of a jewel of a plant such as Magnolia parviflora (now called M. sieboldi). This magnolia follows the rich white beauty of the early spring magnolias with dainty and varied bloom, enhanced by the foliage that surrounds each flower for many weeks.
Plants Of The Season
I would like also to turn the eyes of my garden friends toward the plants of the season in their relation to the general garden picture. Some trees normally lose their foliage early, and the bare structure of the tree is therefore worth taking into account. On the other hand, the lilacs, which gave us a succession of thrills for many days in May and early June, continue to hold on to their deep green, and one may think of several plant combinations that will fit in with the lilacs toward the creation of these fall garden pictures.
We are little acquainted in American gardens with the Michaelmas daisies of England, which we call hardy asters. However, we certainly can promote the use of these beautiful plants, and we may come to recognize that sometimes their seedlings add new beauty to the garden.
September provides another pleasant garden duty in that sonic of the early flowering things are now to be transplanted. There can be too many lilies-of-the-valley crowded together, but they will greatly beautify the larger space into which they may readily be transplanted sometime in late September.
Before long we shall be in the midst of the chrysanthemum season, and it is well to observe that many of the finer new mums are turning toward the real outdoor garden rather than toward the greenhouse which heretofore ‘has filled the shows. If I may make a prediction and indulge in a hope, it is that we shall all soon be paying more and more attention to these newer chrysanthemums and building up a knowledge of their requirements to the end that our fall garden pictures will be benefited thereby.
For many, many reasons, September is a great garden month, and to discount the first frost, which may occur before the end of the month, won’t hurt anyone. Let me hope, therefore, that you will have September gardens that are attractive in themselves and that are also preparing for the show of October, and even November – let me hope, in fact, that this month of September will contribute mightily to the goodness of the year-round gardening game.
by J McFarland – 62881
