Amsonia hubrichtii and Solidago in my garden. Soon the Amsonia foliage will turn bright orange-yellow.

With abundant moisture in the ground, there couldn't be a better week to apply beneficial nematodes to your organic lawn! More organic lawn care information is below.

Our amazing 'Bolero' perennial mum is now just blooming in our gardens. We are restocking this wonderful variety this week. Plus we have over a dozen more truly perennial mums on our benches.

There has NEVER been a better fall to plant!

Bushel Basket Containers stuffed with fall plants are made up daily. Amber is planting a ton of them today!

We LOVE custom orders too!

Everything looks better with pumpkins.

IT'S

PUMPKINSCAPING TIME!

Why We LOVE to Garden in October...

Hello

I emerged out of my house this morning and slowly walked around my garden taking stock of what a 3 day Nor'Easter did to my gardens. SOGGY. FLOPPY. But still beautiful and showing the promise of a LOT more color to come. So the cleanup begins. Anything I didn't pinch (or stake) is staring me in the face. Lots of my early asters and Solidagos are done blooming and I want to deadhead them before their seed ripens. I need to reapply Sluggo to some of my veggie beds (but the lettuce, spinach, chard and escarole look AMAZING!).

WHY do we LOVE to garden in October? Cool weather, fewer mosquitoes, no humidity, and this year we aren't in a drought! Planting now means your perennials, shrubs, trees, and ornamental grasses will grow roots for at least 2 months or more. In the spring, they will be ready to grow the instant the frost leaves the ground. Imagine how thrilled you will be. October is the very best time to reorganize, relocate, and rearrange your beds. Everything wrong is right in front of your eyes. Plus, you KNOW you need and want the outdoor physical activity before the cold weather sets in. It sure beats working out in a gym. The light is golden, the birds are happily eating the seeds and berries you planted. Colors seem brighter. Get outside and ENJOY October!

I went on an AMAZING bus trip with the Connecticut Horticultural Society last Friday led by the president, Jim Sirch. I am going to share a few pictures I took from New England Botanical Gardens at Tower Hill in MA to get you creatively inspired!

Tomorrow, October 1st, is the last day to get the Early Bird Price on the CT Hort conference on October 24th. Click here and register now.

CT Hort Symposium Gardening for All Ages Symposium October 24th

One of my favorite areas of this botanical garden is this walk that is lined with our native, fall blooming witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) underplanted with oakleaf hydrangeas and Fothergillas. The fall foliage colors were just beginning and it just sang of autumn to me. Last week I talked about our native witch hazels. They won't be blooming here for a month and THAT, my friends, is one of the design secrets to a great garden. Succession of bloom with native trees and shrubs is the bomb!

PLANTS HOLDING UP PLANTS! That was something that a lot of us really noticed and learned about as we wandered throughout the gardens. Someone mentioned how amazing it was that this very beautiful but very tall pink fall Anemone was standing up so straight. I dove into the bed to see why. It was allowed to ramble all among a patch of native, upright, deciduous azaleas. Genius!

CREATIVE INTERMINGLING. Echinacea seed heads are left standing amongst native Muhlenbergia grass. You could do the same with dwarf Panicum 'Tumbleweed' (which we are restocking this week) or Sporobolis heterolepsis or any other shorter, native ornamental grass. Easy, interesting, creative. LOVE IT!

PLANT MARRIAGES MADE IN HEAVEN! I couldn't resist snapping a photo of this lower growing mountain mint (Pycnanthemum tenuifolium) inteplanted with the very early and compact Monarda bradburiana. Leaving the seed heads on the Monarda just ups the complexity of the textures. The mountain mint flowers will provide a feast to our fall pollinators. Doesn't it look cool?

THE POWER OF PINCHING! Our gardens are not very forgiving this fall if we neglected to pinch our perennials back in June. If you cut back Vernonia lettermanii 'Iron Butterfly' by at least 1/3-1/2 in June, you will now have a massive, tidy clump of feather foliage topped with tons of fluffy purple flowers. I listened to a talk about Editing the Gardens on the Highline and the speaker said they ALWAYS pinch at least twice, both in May and in June, to assure a tidy, layered look. They do not stake.

Make a note in your calendar for next June what was too tall this fall and it will remind you to pinch it.

What is the nicest thing to see in your garden this week?

FLOWER BUDS!

Never has the art of Succession of Bloom been more important than this growing season. Today I saw that most of my native New England asters (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae) were beginning to turn brown. No worries! My native smooth asters (Symphyotrichum laeve) are going strong. AND, my aromatic asters (Symphyotrichum oblongifolius, shown above from last year) are in bud, no blooms showing yet. That, my friends, is the way I like it. Buds are a beautiful thing at this

point in the growing season.

What would you say if I told you that this lovely semi-double, bright pink flower is a PERENNIAL MUM and that it won't start blooming until the middle to the end of October and continue into November? Yup. Meet Dendranthema 'Lucie's Pink', the perennial mum that started me on my passion project to find more completely hardy, very vigorous fall blooming chrysanthemums.

Be sure to stop in and see all of our perennial mums, we have at least 20 varieties! They come back bigger and better every season. And the bees enjoy them too!

We grew another very late, very great perennial mum called 'Will's Wonderful'. This is one of my very favorite cut flowers for later in October. This plant was originally introduced by Seneca Hill Perennials owner Ellen Hornig. It has been passed around by gardeners who love late bloomers for years. It belongs in every garden.

Dendranthema 'Bronze Elegans' is the highlight of my front foundation planting in very late fall. I renovated this garden a few years ago and I am so glad I married this heirloom perennial orange mum with a low growing, golden Juniper.

'Autumn Moon' perennial mums also bloom in late October, into November. They are constantly covered with bumble bees and all sorts of other hungry pollinators. Planning for late succession of bloom is so important!

Dendranthema 'Mei Kyo' is one of my personal favorites. It starts now and keeps blooming until early November! It also is one of the most vigorous varieties I grow. The habit is a bit more compact but I still give it a good pinch every June.

Ilex verticillata 'Berry Heavy Gold' (winterberry) is such a great plant to increase not only the fall color but also to provide berries for the birds. This has beautiful berries and grows 6-8' tall and wide. All Ilex verticillata plants (winterberries, a deciduous native holly) are either male or female and you need both to get berries. We have 'Mr Poppins' in stock to pollinate this variety.

I spotted a gorgeous gold berried winterberry at Tower Hill last Friday. It was paired with our native Oxydendrum arboreum (sourwood tree). Breathtakingly beautiful. Look at all those berries!

Imagine a HARDY perennial begonia that blooms in the fall in the shade. Yes, that is exactly what you are looking at in this picture taken at Natureworks this morning. They have dainty pink flowers, and the back of the leaf is a beautiful bright maroon. These plants are a bit stretched in this pot, in your garden next season they would grow wider and a bit shorter. Plant one this fall!

This combo wowed me at New England Botanical Gardens and you can duplicate it at Natureworks! That is native Andropogon 'Black Hawks' (big bluestem grass) with the deep burgundy leaves. In front of it is Symphyotrichum laeve (smooth aster) that has been properly pinched.

When you drive into Natureworks, look to the left and check out the tree with the creamy white bark. Look up and you will see clusters of white flowers that are changing quickly to coral calyxes. This is Heptacodium miconioides (seven sons tree). I LOVE this tree and have one planted by my back garage. When the white flowers are in bloom, they are insanely fragrant and it literally shakes and BUZZES with life! The calyxes are the second show for this really outstanding tree. We FINALLY got some CT grown trees in last week. Hooray!

Aconitums (monkshood) are budded up and some of the first flowers are beginning to open. These are related to Delphiniums and larkspur but are a perennial that is reliable and blooms in October! We have a few different colors and varieties in stock.

If a native grass can battle it out with all of the wild and crazy invasive in my "back forty", I am sold. Tridens flavus (purpletop) is a native grass that has totally impressed me this year. The graceful, deep purple flowers are waving in the gentle breeze above the perennials below. I just planted 3 more. This is MY kind of plant!

When one thinks of Corydalis, what usually comes to mind is the very long blooming, herbaceous perennial Corydalis lutea. This has yellow flowers and, if it is happy, it is one of the longest blooming perennials in the garden, often flowering from spring thru fall. Good drainage is imperative, sun or shade are both good.

BUT...

Along with this hard-to-find perennial (which we actually have on our benches right now), I love, love, LOVE Corydalis solida 'Beth Evans', (pictured above). Every person I have suggested this to has come back the following spring and raved about it. The bulbs are tiny, there are lots of them in a package, and they are not expensive. They do multiply nicely and every year, in late spring, I scoop a bunch of them up and move them to new spots.

Blue is such a great color to use in our fall gardens. This pretty blue daisy is our native smooth aster (Symphyotrichum laeve) and it is just coming into bloom in our gardens. We sell it as potted plugs so it is very easy to establish in your gardens.

Folks often overlook Allium caeruleum. I don't know why, it truly is as blue as this picture shows it. Perhaps because it is smaller than other late spring blooming Allium bulbs. But, the color... The trick is to plant it in big drifts in the foreground of your garden, coming up through lower plants. Below you can see it in the sunny garden by my back garage. I have a big pot of red lettuce in the background, a perennial mum behind it, and it is growing up through a low ground cover. Try something new and wonderful this year.

Tulip 'Go Go Red' is an irresistible temptation. I have been growing this for 3 years now and everyone comments on it. If you love it, grab it. It won't last in our bulb bins.

Tulipa sylvestris is a perennial species tulip that has been returning for me for the past four years. It is fragrant, naturalizes well, and has been grown in this country since Thomas Jefferson planted it at his famous woodland garden in Monticello.

NANCY GARDEN TIP- My garden is WAY too full right now to even consider planting bulbs. But the ones I want and love, well, I WANT them so I am going to GRAB THEM now. I keep them in a big basket in my front garage. I slowly add to my stash as October rolls along. I usually don't start planting bulbs until the garden simmers down a bit, usually late October into November!

The only exception to this are the fall blooming Colchicums (which are in their glory right now) and the saffron crocuses which won't start blooming for another few weeks. I like to get them in the ground right away. Which is NOW.

This is an old stand of 'Waterlily' Colchicums coming up through a drift of dwarf iris foliage in my garden. I took this picture a few minutes ago! Colchicums are appearing through so many different perennials. Did you know they also grow in shade?

If you have a shade garden that needs a bit of a pick-me-up this fall, have we got plants for you! And NO, they are not all fall bloomers. Unlike many other garden centers, we stock fall bloomers in the spring and spring bloomers in the fall in our quest to continue to teach you about Succession of Bloom.

Above is a combination made in heaven for the shade from our benches this week:

• Pulmonaria 'Opal' has a really cool name but it perfectly describes the deep pale blue flowers that appear in the early spring over the stunning silver spotted foliage.
• Iris cristata (crested iris) is a native, dwarf, shade garden edging plant that holds its foliage together from spring until late fall. The flowers are blue or white and we have both. Actually we have 3 types!
• The third spring blooming plant I would suggest adding to your shade garden now is Tiarella 'Running Tapestry'. This is our native foam flower with white flowers and green leaves marked in dark maroon that deepens in the fall as the weather gets cooler. It spreads by stolons (runners) forming a really good ground cover that Colchicums would look really amazing coming up through each fall.

I am steadily making some progress getting my house ready for all of the houseplants that have been summering on my deck. I have repotted a few, brought home more potting soil and clay pots to repot some more, and I have been clearing the surfaces, dusting, and rearranging my decorative ceramic pots display some of the plants in my office.

Above is a picture of a ritual that I go through every October with some of my bigger tropical houseplants. I remove them from their pretty ceramic pots, scrape off some of the soil and tease and trim the roots a bit, then I add fresh soil (I use Organic Mechanics Container Blend) and then plant them back in the same pot. I water them well with Stress X or Neptune's Harvest liquid seaweed, to get those feeder roots growing. Then I cut them back hard so they will fit in the house and to encourage new, well branched growth during the winter. It takes courage! My hibiscuses, my Cestrum nocturnum (shown above) and quite a few others get this treatment and I have been growing them in my home office, which is a sunroom with 8 big windows, for years and years.

If you have questions about your houseplants, come in and chat with us!

We can help!

Last week I explained about the many different ways you can deal with the seed pods on your plants at this time of year. During the three days of rain, I wasn't able to do any harvesting, but I did manage to get out to the back garage and sort and bag all of the seeds that I have harvested so far to use in my workshop on Saturday, October 31st. This is a hands-on class and you will not only learn all about harvesting, cleaning, and sowing seeds, you will take home a milk jug with native perennial seeds planted in it that you will PUT OUTSIDE all winter. The seeds sprout in the late winter and spring!

Seed Harvesting and Winter Sowing Workshop with Nancy

As soon as everything dries out, I will resume collecting and saving native perennial seeds for this class. The team at the shop has already started collecting too!

Sign up with a friend or two. You will learn a lot and get a lot of perennials to plant next year as well!

Right NOW (yes FALL, not spring) is the very best time to begin the process of reseeding and renovating your organic lawn. We have everything you need from our custom grass seed mix, EcoLawn grass seed, Mainely Mulch shredded straw, organic soil amendments, organic grub control products, and even FLAWN so you can add flowers to your lawn! Right now our sales include 30% off Beneficial Nematodes. Put them down after or during a rain to get them watered into the soil. Now is the perfect time!

Got crabgrass? Overseed crabgrass areas of your lawn as the crabgrass starts to get its fall color and dies back. Another trick is to bag the clippings of crabgrass this time of year to collect and toss the seed heads. Overseeding now really helps the fight against crabgrass germination next May! As Diane always says 'The best defense against weeds is grass seed!'

Click to read our Organic Lawn Care Handout

Tomorrow is the first day of October. The weather has turned and it is supposed to be sunny, dry, and getting up close to 80 degrees by the end of the week. That is our reward for suffering through such a long spell of rain and chilly weather.

The pollinators are hungry and my garden is literally buzzing with life. Solidagos, asters, Eupatoriums, and all of my annuals are feeding them and keeping them coming back for more. It gives me great joy to observe the goldfinches (whose golden feathers are starting to change to brown) pecking at the seed heads of my annual and perennial sunflowers, black-eyed Susans, Echinaceas, Tithonias, zinnias and more.

Let the energy of the fall season inspire you to work in your own gardens as much as you possibly can. Soak up the sun. Stop and study the changing leaves, the colorful berries. Bring big, beautiful bouquets into your house. Light candles in the evening. Play with your houseplants and ready your interior spaces for wintering indoors.

We have a full month of excellent planting time ahead of us. Take advantage of the fact that Natureworks is continuing to restock and continuing to teach you about the joys of fall planting. I hope to see you soon and often as we go through this next phase of our CT growing season together. Thank you for your continued support!

See you very soon...

Note: many of our workshops are free and you can just show up!



Those that are interactive where you will take home a Pretty Goth Garden porch pot, an Embellished Pumpkin or a Milk Jug filled with seeds for winter sowing require advance registration and payment. Sign up soon. All paid workshops have class limits. Reserve your spot today. This Sunday's Goth Garden porch pot container workshop has several spots left as of right now! Join us, it is so fun to plant with a group! Here is a picture from last October, look at all the smiles!

Click here to register for FALL WORKSHOPS

We welcome CT author Lorraine Ballato to our teaching tent to answer all your Hydrangea questions! We have a limited supply of her new book, 'Hydrangea Pruning' which answers SO MANY hydrangea questions. It is a great resource to have for your gardening library!

No need to register, just come and take a seat! She will happily sign your book!

Sat Oct 10, 1:30pm.

The deadline is fast approaching (OCTOBER 1ST) for you to register at the Earlybird Price for this exciting conference that I have been planning with my committee all year.

Rebecca McMackin, Jennifer McGuiness, Christine Darnell are our speakers. The panel about Gardening for All Ages includes me, Karen Bussolini, Jillian Shea, Jen McGuiness, Dan Furman (of Cricket Hill), and Eric Mason.

No matter what stage of your gardening life you are in, this conference and this panel will enlighten, empower, and inspire you.

AND NATUREWORKS WILL BE A VENDOR!!!

We LOVE Itea all spring and summer but we REALLY love it in the fall when the foliage turns brilliant red. This is a large grouping of NATIVE shrubs in the Natureworks sales yard including Itea in the foreground, lots of different winterberries in the background, and more. FALL is the very best time to plant native shrubs!!!!

For over 55 informational handouts, head to

www.natureworksgardencenter.com

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