After a warm end to August, September brought with it a marked shift in the weather, with clouds, morning fog and cooler daytime temperatures bringing the first signs of autumn.
As you shift into new routines and schedules, now is also the time to change gears in the garden — fall planting season is here. With a new season underway, here are a few tips to maximize the beauty and success of your garden.
First, with Labor Day in the rearview mirror, now is the time to start planting shrubs, trees and perennials in the garden. Early autumn planting offers multiple benefits: warm soil from summer’s heat encourages rapid root development, the impending arrival of the rainy season in the next month or so will help reduce your work keeping plants watered while they get established, and shortening daylight hours shift plants into winter dormancy so they can focus on root development instead of growing leaves and flowers over the coming months.
If landscape updates are on your to-do list, I strongly encourage you to consider fall planting to take advantage of all these benefits. As you map out what to plant, focus on incorporating all four major colors of plants into your landscape for maximum color throughout the year, namely blue, yellow, red, and green.
Washington’s moniker is The Evergreen State and for good reason — thanks to our climate, the west side of the state is abundantly green. But any interesting landscape has a range of other colors as well. Blue brings cool shades to a garden, with Boulevard cypress being a common and easy-to-grow option for a large landscape shrub. For a smaller, more unique option, check out the rare beauty of Blue Prostrate Noble fir, a low, spreading fir excellent in rock gardens or on a hillside.
Yellow is a great contrast to blue foliage and brightens up any garden space. Golden smoke bush holds bright yellow leaves all through spring and summer, turning rich golden orange in autumn before it drops its leaves. Fernspray Gold Hinoki cypress is an elegant, lacy conifer with bright chartreuse foliage year-round. Growing to around fifteen feet tall, it makes an excellent small tree perfect as a focal point in a garden space or as an anchor at the corner of a house.
Red is the perfect color to complement yellow tones and contrast with greens and blues. ‘Bloodgood’ Japanese maple is a common and excellent option with rich purple-red foliage that turns flaming crimson in fall. Hardy and easy to grow, Japanese maples are simply one of the best small trees for Pacific Northwest yards.
And finally, green, the mainstay of your garden, but by no means the most boring. Dwarf conifers like Pusch Norway spruce bear purple cones on the tips of each branch in spring; shrubs like Forest Flame pieris hold green leaves year-round but flame up with red new growth in spring following a round of white blooms; and reblooming dwarf hydrangeas like Cherry-Go-Round have deep green leaves and rich blood-red flowers that age to a totally-unique mahogany color.
As you get to work planting, remember to follow a few steps to ensure the success of your plants. First, err on the side of planting too shallow rather than too deep. I’ve said it before and I’ll echo my grandma’s wise words again — “Plant too high, it will not die; plant too low, it will not grow.”
A plant can always root itself deeper into the ground if planted too shallow, but plants stuck in a hole dug too deep can’t dig themselves out and are susceptible to a slow death from soil piled around the base of the plant, which can rot the stem or choke off the movement of water and nutrients just under the bark.
Next, be sure to amend your soil with compost or fresh topsoil if planting in rocky, clay, or sandy ground. If you live in a newer development, chances are high that the soil isn’t great. It’s just a part of a growing community — the early settlers built on the best ground first. While most plants can adapt to less-than-prime soils, working some better soil into the area immediately surrounding your plants will give them a better start.
And finally, I always recommend using a starter fertilizer like Espoma Bio-Tone when planting. Starter fertilizers are specifically formulated to encourage root development rather than top growth, so use plant starter any time you plant to get those roots growing quickly.
As you change out your summer flowers with fresh fall mums and cold-hardy winter pansies in the coming weeks, make some plans to take advantage of this perfect season for planting around your yard.
Whatever you plant now will be rooted in before winter arrives and well-established long before next summer’s heat arrives, giving you more success in your garden and more time to enjoy the beauty of a well-planned garden space.
— David Vos is manager of Vander Giessen Nursery Inc. of Lynden who writes his monthly column In Bloom that appears in the Lynden Tribune in Country Life.
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