The September Ramble

Garden center benches are filling up with mums, and there was once a time when these fall-blooming plants were hardy and perennial. Not so much anymore. Breeders and growers now concentrate on mums that flower at a particular time and retain a particular shape and not on their ability to return next year.

It’s been difficult to figure out which varieties at garden centers are truly perennials, and I take the word of the staff with a grain of salt. I recently visited a few large garden centers and checked the tags of over 30 different varieties of garden mums. Only one had the word “perennial” on the tag.

Part of the problem is also that these plants get into our gardens very late in the season and don’t have a chance to establish roots into the garden soil. Most of these seem to die out over the winter simply because they can’t anchor into the soil and therefore, they can’t absorb water and slowly die off and get desiccated during the winter. One type of mum that’s become very popular is referred to as a Belgian mum. If you’re curious check out this website and you may find out some interesting tidbits about their hardiness: plantsheaven.com/belgian-mums-annual-or-perennial.

The White Flower Farm sells the Igloo series of mums in five colors as well as Clara Curtis, which should all be reliably hardy if properly planted — in the ground and not in pots or planters — and the variety Korean Single Apricot is the last mum to flower and has always been reliably hardy if you can find it.

Seeing roving flocks of starlings, blackbirds, or crows on the lawn? This can happen any time, but when they are persistent and travel over the lawn in groups pecking at the turf it’s a sign that insects are present — which can be a good indicator that you may have a problem. Late-summer beetles are laying eggs and pupae are developing. Sod webworm moths are being seen now and laying eggs. The moths don’t do damage, but the emerging worms that develop next spring can do damage. If you’re seeing the birds pecking away or the buff-colored moths on the grass blades, do some research or speak with your lawn care professional.

Many of you got in touch with me last spring after my column on our native lupine, Lupinus perennis. If you collected seed or bought some from my suggested vendor now is a good time to plant your seed, but only half of it. The seed should be sown in a hole made with a sharp pencil with one or two seeds per hole about 1/3 of an inch deep. Germination will be very poor so if you’re trying to establish a planting do a dozen or more seed holes (more is better) on 8-inch centers. Tag the area and leave yourself a note to check the spot every few weeks beginning next June. In May do a similar planting with the other half of the seeds. Germination is always spotty and may take more than one growing season so be patient. When germination takes place don’t attempt to transplant the lupines as legumes don’t take well to root disruption.

Columbine (Aquilegia) seed can also be sown now if you collected any. Rough up the soil with a steel rake and don’t smooth it out. Scatter the seed on the area with 20 to 30 seeds per square foot. Don’t cover the seed. Let the rain and weather settle the seed in, but it needs light to germinate. Some will germinate this fall and others in the spring. When you see germination in the spring, thin the plants to a couple per square feet. Surplus seedlings are easy to transplant on a cloudy day when they’re small. Flowering will take place in the second year. No fertilizer for the lupines or the columbines.

Earlier in the summer I was relaxing on the front porch and gazing up the driveway where there is a 10-foot diameter bed that’s home to a perennial Hibiscus, two varieties of daylilies and two late-summer varieties of perennial Ageratum all surrounded by native sweet peas that jumped the driveway from their original planting. It’s a pretty remarkable little garden that drivers often stop to look at and pedestrians take pictures of. None of it is planned, but the plants seem to have found their right homes and are quite happy, as am I.

But while watching I saw a small animal scoot across the driveway from the plantings at the base of a large spruce and across the bluestone to the round bed on the left. I knew immediately by the color and size that it was my mortal enemy, a vole, also called a meadow mouse. Off the recliner, up to the house for a mouse trap, a small piece of apple and a tiny dab of peanut butter. I set the trap and gently laid it where I’d seen the vole enter the perennial forest. I placed a red flag marker nearby to remind me where the trap was and to check it. Within hours the villain was caught and on its way to rodent heaven — or was it hell?

It was a wake-up call as voles are the most destructive pest in my gardens, and for the past year I hadn’t trapped or seen one. This was probably due to the work of a black cat that was hanging around and was a great hunter. But the cat moved elsewhere, and now the voles are back.

Last week, not 20 feet from the same location I managed to get my smaller tractor stuck on wet grass on a hill. The manual for the tractor is quite clear: “When on a slope cut up and down and not across.” It was in the second time this year I’d gotten stuck in the exact same spot, and yes, I have learned my lesson. But as I was working on a plan to get the small tractor out using a larger tractor I spied two beady little eyes and a hairy brown face peering from a hole and looking at me. Another vole, and my hopes of the earlier one being a one-off were dashed.

Back to the house. My last mouse trap. A small piece of apple garnished with a dab of peanut butter. The trap set and flagged. Three hours later, another vole on its way wherever.

Now, this may seem trivial to you but keep in mind that voles eat the roots of many plants including poppies, hibiscus and lupines. Voles probably do more garden and landscape damage than any other animals, even deer. Most of their damage goes unnoticed, though, as it’s all underground.

The best way to catch voles is with the old-fashioned wooden mouse traps baited with a quarter-inch piece of apple garnished with peanut butter. It’s best to set a trap weekly if only to see if they are present, and if they are you need to rebait and trap fairly regularly. Even in winter as voles reproduce and are active year round. Careful of your fingers though. The tiny mouse traps (about 80 cents each) hurt when the spring on your finger; it takes a bit of skill.

Perennial basil? Several years ago I remember reading that a hardy and perennial basil was being worked on. Then the pipeline of information went dry. This wonderful herb probably originated in India, and when the air temperature drops to 40 degrees it starts to suffer. With a frost, it’s generally toast but long before then it tries to go to seed, and the flavor changes. It was too wet in my garden to plant basil this summer so I kept it in pots ready for salsa, pasta and whatever else my wife uses it in.

A few weeks ago my assistant and I were working in the trial garden lining out new plants and getting ready for the four new varieties of hydrangeas that were being sent to go on trial. On our hands and knees Nancy and I pulled weeds and dug the holes for 10 new plants. As I was about to pull out what I thought was a weed I stopped just in time. In a spot where basil had been growing last year there was a 6-inch-tall, well-branched basil plant.

Since I know I hadn’t planted any this year, it was and remains quite a mystery. There’s the outside chance that a plant dropped some seed last year but unlike cosmos and petunias that can germinate from last year’s dropped seed, I’d never heard of basil doing this. We transplanted the plant and will keep an eye on it hoping it will flower and drop seed. Next year we may have an answer, or not.

It’s time to order your spring flower bulbs, like tulips, crocus, daffodils and all the minor bulbs. Careful who you buy from and don’t fall for bargain bundles you see in the retail stores. You always get the best performance from the largest bulb of any variety that you can purchase. All bulbs are graded by the bulb circumference and expressed in centimeters. If you have the opportunity to get larger bulbs it’s well worth the price, and the smaller ones are often inferior, rejects and low performers.

Buy your bulbs from a reputable local retailer or from one of the better mail-order bulb firms. These include brantandbeckysbulbs.com, johnsheepers.com and oldhousegardens.com for heirloom bulbs. Also keep in mind that most tulips will only last a couple of years, the exception being botanical tulips that are perennials. Daffodils are deer proof as are Fritillarias, but deer will not only dig up tulip bulbs and eat them but those that they miss become spring food just as the flower buds swell in the spring.

You can get one year of bulb protection by dipping them in Bobbex-R before planting, but the repellency lasts only one season. Tulips get planted first, daffodils later. None, other than lilies, should be planted now. If bulbs arrive early, keep them in a dark, dry, cool basement. Keep growing.