Here’s a short list of the things I am thankful for (horticulturally speaking)...

Of all the gardening tools I own, I am most thankful for my handheld, gasoline powered leaf blower.  Now I know that leaf blowers are the bane of many city dweller’s existence.  They are noisy, kick up considerable dust and pollute the air, but boy are they slick when it comes to collecting leaves on gravel.  If I had to rake by hand all the leaves that fall on my gravel here in the nursery I would have to replace a dump truck load of gravel every year and when you think of all the energy and pollution that would take, the leaf blower all of a sudden sounds like a pretty good way to keep the environment clean.  Let’s hear it for the guy who invented the leaf blower! 

My job gets really tough this time of year.  Here I am trying to motivate you to get out into the garden and clean up the beds, replant the containers, plunk some bulbs into the ground along with spreading mulch everywhere to control weeds and insulate the soil.  Meanwhile, all you are thinking about are the holidays; how you want to decorate the house or which set of in-laws you are going to visit for Thanksgiving and frankly, gardening is probably one of the farthest things from your mind.  I get it.  You have been working your butt off all summer long dragging hoses around the yard and mowing the lawn and you are over it.  So instead of fighting it, I am going to go with the flow and talk about how we can use our garden to decorate the house for the holidays.  More specifically I am talking about making wreaths for the holidays using plant material from your garden.  In two weeks it will be time for my December to-do list and I will get everyone back on track then.  

If you are looking for a sturdy perennial that will grow in shade or morning sun, look no further than Hellebores.  These perennials are tough as nails and rarely need to be divided once they are planted.  Mostly disease-free and only occasionally visited by aphids, they are easy to grow and non-demanding.  I have several clumps in my garden that were planted many years ago and other than cutting them back once a year, I do absolutely nothing special to them.  And the big bonus is that they bloom in the fall and winter.

Normally at the first of each month I dispense my gardening wisdom in the form of a monthly To Do List, something I suspect many of you loathe because of the ensuing guilt you feel knowing that you won’t get half of it done.  Considering that last week I wrote about Putting the Garden to Bed, there seems no point in beating the same information into your heads a second time.  You can access all of my past columns on my website at www.sunnysidenursery.net and of course you can always send me your questions which I will gladly respond to in a timely manner (and often in the evening under the influence of a glass wine which can make for some colorful responses; don’t say I didn’t warn you).

First off, let me say that I don’t like the expression “Putting the garden to bed” because it sounds so final.  The fact is that there are still plants out there that are wide awake and believe it or not, there are some plants that react to winter with renewed energy.  But there are some specific tasks that we can do to prepare for the winter.  Here’s my list...

Back in the late 60’s, when I was finishing up my undergraduate studies, house plants were all the rage.  In the trade we referred to them as foliage plants and had it not been for the draft and the Vietnam War my path might very well have been through the vast foliage growers of Encinitas, California where range after range of greenhouses were packed with ferns, palms, golden pothos, snake plants, philodendrons, Swedish ivy and of course spider plants.  Walking through a greenhouse with all these plants was much like having your own oxygen tanks.  It was invigorating to breathe the air with the elevated levels of not only oxygen but also humidity and generally good vibes from all those little photosynthesis factories.  You just knew it was healthy to be in this kind of environment.

As much as I hate to admit it, it is time to jettison the summer color and start thinking about what will look good in the garden all winter long.  As the perennials melt down, the annuals die and the deciduous trees & shrubs shed their foliage, we are left with one primary group of plants that can give us dependable winter color - needle-leafed evergreens, which botanically speaking, we call conifers.

I have fond memories of planting bulbs as a youngster.  First, Mom and I would go to the garden center and study all the delicious varieties we had to choose from.  Then, after making our decision and purchases we would go home and lay the bulbs out in the beds in drifts.  Finally, I got to dig the holes, drop in a teaspoon of bone meal (to this day the smell of bone meal instantly transports me back to that time) and carefully insert the bulbs, cover them up and smooth out the ground, removing any evidence that we were ever there.  I would imagine that I was burying treasure or hiding Christmas presents to be found and opened at a later time.  The anticipation was wonderful but the best part was watching them emerge from the ground two months later.  Each day after I came home from school I would check out their progress to see how much they had grown and feel the stems for a bulge that was the flower yet to come.  When they did finally bloom it was like Christmas morning all over again.  

It is official.  As of the 23rd of September, the days are now shorter than the nights and will continue to be so for the next six months.  While that might sound depressing to us, the fact is that Mother Nature doesn’t seem to be bothered by it at all.  In fact, there are actually plants that seem to wake up in the winter, bloom and set fruit while the rest of us are hunkered down in our homes.  Go figure!

For anyone who has followed my columns over the years, you will recognize the following mantra:  “If you want year ‘round interest in your garden, you need to go to the garden center once a month and buy something that looks interesting.”  You don’t have to spend a boat load of money, just buy something that catches your eye.   If you do this every month, for 12 months, you will have year ‘round interest.  It is that simple!  I realize, of course, that it will take some finessing and planning to work these monthly purchases into your garden design, but with a little “organizing” it can be done with relatively little stress.  And always remember that plants can be moved and rearranged as the garden evolves.  Other than trees, the garden is a fluid composition that can be adjusted and reassembled throughout the years.  NOTHING IS PERMANENT!