Gardening Highlights for September
Article & photos submitted by Sue Wilson of the Gibson County Master Gardeners
September is the Thirty days hath month many buy and September! Looking plant chrysanthemums back, how did summer because they bring pass so fast? The “dog days” are such beautiful color to our behind us and now we have to landscapes. They are the sure signal prepare our landscapes for fall and we’re leaving summer behind and fall winter. Many choose to plan in the fall and winter are coming soon. However, because the cooler temperatures you can plants your mums in the spring make it easier because plants, shrubs so they develop a root system that will and trees do not need as much water. help them survive winter, as long as The winter landscape is not as you buy perennials. They are called colorful but many plants, shrubs and “hardy” mums for a reason. An annual trees stay green all winter. If you have mum will die! resin pots that are colorful, they can Now is also a good time to cut be eye catching. Also, metal and A patch of sunflowers by the fence. bouquets of flowers for our home concrete landscapes can be eyebefore they quit producing new blooms. And clean up catchers, too. My philosophy is not to cut away the dead your landscape so you won’t have so much to do in the landscape but to wait until spring so the bugs, birds and spring. Enjoy the cooler temperatures. And when you critters have cover during winter. hear the crickets you know our wonderful summer Now is a good time to cut the heads off your sunflowers and set them out so the birds and critters can season is coming to a close. “Keep making the world a more beautiful place!” eat the seeds along with the bird feed you put out. There’s nothing funnier than watch a squirrel grab a sunflower, twice their size, toward the tree he lives in 30 feet away. He leaps two steps, then rests, careful not to drop the head until he makes it to his tree. It is best to clean out old debris in September. There are leaves, dropped blooms, small tree, and of course, the weeds which keep persistently coming up all summer. I have decided that weeds have a “survival“ mechanism like nothing else in nature. Remember that weeds literally choke to death your plants, shrubs and trees. Making sure you get the whole root is important. That’s why gardeners love a slow soaking rain so that getting the whole root is much easier. This summer has caused a bumper crop of weeds because of the on and off drought we have been experiencing. Not only have our landscapes suffered but so have our vegetable gardens. An assortment of hardy mums brighten the mailbox
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