Once Labor Day is past it is time for the year’s second planting season to begin. Many garden centers and nurseries will be putting potted plants on sale. Many friends will realize they have to move plants and will have divisions to pass along. Each gardener may have her own plants to divide, to share or to move to a new location in the garden. We gardeners are lucky. We get a second chance every fall to act on second thoughts, correcting decisions that didn’t work out as we had expected, or acting on new ideas we saw over the summer in the gardens we visited. It’s time to dig again.

In my own garden I have worked over the past two summers to cover the ground. My goal is a garden that needs less maintenance. For me a low maintenance garden, to a large extent, translates into large shrubs and groundcovers.  It has not been easy but I have worked hard to plant my shrubs far enough apart to allow for growth. When I do this, of course, I end up with lots of empty space between. I filled those spaces by planting perennial flowers and low ground covers closely together knowing that they would grow and spread and soon need dividing.

I have just started moving some of my plants. We are working towards a grassless front yard and have planted low growing conifers, a low growing rhododendron with pink flowers and a deutzia which will have white flowers in the spring. I dug up two dark leaved heucheras, one nearly dead from the drought, and one with amazing strength but a dusty demeanor that did not bode well for its survival. Both now share space in the front garden. I brought a few little Woods Blue aster divisions down from the Heath garden and planted them in our South Border. They grow low, bloom late and spread energetically to cover the ground nicely behind and around a viburnam. Some of these new plants will be moved to the raised bed at the northern border of our lot where I will be very glad to have them continue to spread.

That raised bed is so large that I am also planning to move some of my perennial ageratums, Conoclinium coelestinum. These vigorous spreaders are also called blue mistflowers and bloom in late summer into the fall. A friend gave me a few for my new garden last year. Because they were transplanted in the heat of mid-summer they never looked vigorous, but they still produced a few flowers.

This year I have a great swath of blue even though it has been so dry. I don’t know about you but I have a few mystery ground covers in the South Border. They have done their job in covering the ground, and it is now time to move them where they can spread further. I am particularly fascinated by an interesting succulent that I have replanted where I can admire it better. We are still in the process of enlarging planting beds so I am glad to be able to move these mysteries. Maybe one day a visitor will identify them for me. Before and after moving any plants they should be well watered to help them make the transition.

As summer draws to a close you will find bargains at garden centers. I saw that trees and shrubs are 30% of at the Greenfield Farmers Coop on High Street, and perennials are also on sale. Sale plants may look a little tired, and when un-potted they may be quite rootbound, but they have plenty of life. I use my garden claw to pull those roots apart. Tearing or breaking them a bit will encourage them to make new roots so don’t feel you have to be very gentle. Then give them a good watering before you put them in their new planting hole, along with some compost, and then water again. I am also mulching all my new plantings. Take advantage of garden center sales! No matter where your plants come from this fall, you’ll be ahead of the game in the spring.

Last week I mentioned mulch volcanoes. Since then a number of people has asked me to explain. The term mulch volcano describes the way some well intentioned gardeners, and even landscapers, pile mulch around and up the trunk of a newly planted tree. The mulch pile can resemble a cone rising six inches or more up the tree trunk, or the effect can be that of a cupcake with a candle in the middle. Either way, piling mulch up a tree trunk stresses the tree and does it no good. Tree roots need water and air but a deep layer of mulch will suffocate them. Deep mulch around a tree trunk has the same effect as planting a tree too deeply. Two or three inches of mulch is all you need to spread around a tree to conserve water, moderate temperature and protect it from mowers and string trimmers.

Between the Rows   September 10, 2016