There are always things we want to change about every garden. Plants we want to move. Plants we want to remove. New plants we want to plant. We don’t just want the gardens to change every year (which we do because we think that makes it more interesting for us and for repeat visitors) but we want to get it right. The North Garden especially. It doesn’t actually change a whole lot from year to year (aside from its latest redesign) because we have settled on a palette of colors that suits that garden and its view. It just needs tweaking from one year to the next to make sure that it’s beautiful from one hot summer week to the next and in peak bloom from May to October. And of course we stack the deck as we do in each garden (except maybe the Rock Garden) with annuals and tender perennials that will fill it to the gills with late season color. (Spring and early-summer color themselves.)

But right now the North is quieter than it should be and than we’d like. The petunias that bloomed so beautifully through July and into August have apparently succumbed to the budworm. And something mysterious has happened to our ever-reliable dahlias, particularly those in the front row. They’re all budded up with nary an open flower on a single plant. With the weather being so soft and lovely (aside from last night’s storm) we feel we’re being cheated one of the prettiest times of year in that garden. But Gail and I are harsh critics when we have our notebooks out. When I looked again through the camera lens I saw that the Aster ‘Lady in Black’ has woven its dark foliage beautifully through the garden and will bloom any second now. I noticed that the Coreopsis ‘Red Shift’ and Phlox ‘Natural Feelings’ that the volunteers deadheaded a couple-three weeks ago are putting on a fresh show. The heliotrope, Zinnia angustifolia (which deserves its own post), Ageratum ‘Blue Horizon’ and its doppelganger, hardy ageratum (Conoclinium coelestinum) are all blooming to beat the band. The back row dahlias, ‘Golden Cloud’, which were recommended by a visitor last year are thumbing their nose at whatever scuzz the front row dahlias have gotten and are gooooorgeous.

Nonetheless, we’re working on a list of plants to move and remove for a showier September next year. We might try to save room in the budget to replace petunias with something else (what else?) when they go by and maybe we won’t rely quite so heavily on our favorite little orange dahlias. We’ve made mental and actual notes to remember to cut the phlox and coreopsis back again next year in early to mid-August because their second flush is almost prettier than their first.

Are you your garden’s harshest critic? What will you do differently next year? Have you had similar trouble with dahlias? Any guesses why?

As much as I love the freshness of a June garden, September is my favorite month. Some visitors seem surprised that we “still” have so much color but I can’t imagine it any other way. The gentle light and the beautiful cool blue days demand that we be outside reveling in exuberant color. We definitely plan for this time of year (in truth, for the whole summer into fall season) to be stupendous but it doesn’t take much – a few annuals like zinnias, ageratum, and alyssum; and a handful of tender perennials like dahlias, salvias, angelonia, and plectranthus and you’re golden. Or the garden is in any case, especially in the slanted light of September. Even with roses, delphinium, asters, and euphorbia (re)blooming in the Rose Garden, it wouldn’t be nearly as spectacular without the annuals and tender perennials giving them a boost. I know a lot of gardeners choose not to buy plants that won’t survive the winter outside but I think those plants are worth every penny (and seed annuals like zinnias really do just cost pennies) because they’re the ones that carry the garden so effortlessly past its usual early summer peak well into the prettiest months of all.

And of course, some of them can survive the winter and carry whatever we spent on them into the next season too (and the next after that and the next…) We’ve started taking cuttings of some of our favorites like porterweed (Stachytarpheta mutabilis), cigar plant (Cuphea spp.) and heliotrope. We’re lucky to have the greenhouse for overwintering them but sunny windowsills would work too.

Is your garden as colorful as you’d like it to be this month? Do you use annuals and tender perennials too or do rely on late-blooming hardy perennials and shrubs? For a look at a whole world of colorful September blooms, check out May Dreams Gardens Garden Bloggers Bloom Day (September 15).

Just in time for winter to finally look and feel more like a proper winter, Gail and I are sliding headfirst towards spring. We started the new year by looking through magazine back issues for inspiration. (Do you do that too? It’s as if I never saw them before – and in some cases I hadn’t. Who has time to read anything in May and June – or October for that matter?) And in the last couple of weeks we’ve moved along to seed catalogs. At first it seemed like there was nothing new and then suddenly everything old was new again and everything forgotten was remembered fondly and wanted desperately. The more we go through the catalogs making choices, the more our momentum and excitement builds, so much that it’s hard to know when to quit.

Same thing with taking cuttings – but then I always have a hard time not taking more than we need if there are more to take. I started whacking back the scented geraniums (Pelargonium, that is) yesterday and it’s a good thing we have a plan for these next year, because we’ll have plenty of plants now thanks to me being obsessive about sticking every possible cutting.

Pelargonium are so easy to root and now is a fine time if you haven’t cut yours back yet. Take the growing tips and prepare them by cutting below the second or third leaf node from the tip. Cut that leaf off right at the stem and then place the cutting end-out of a plastic bag for a day. They root more reliably if the wound has a chance to callous first. Once the cut looks dry and slightly crusted, dust or dip it in rooting hormone and stick in dampened perlite, vermiculite or sand – whatever you like to use for rooting. If the remaining leaves are large, cut them in half to reduce transpiration. Keep them out of direct sun and the  medium from drying out. A few weeks waiting should do the trick.

Are you sliding down a slippery slope to spring too? Are you ordering more seeds or taking more cuttings yet than you have room for?

Last but never least, are the little things I love. You know I am all for outstanding plants – I always have to grow a few big ones that grab attention and don’t let it go for a minute. Fuller’s teasel, castor beans, and my very favorite 6 footer, Gomphocarpus physocarpus ‘Oscar’ (aka hairy balls) should be high on my list because they simply can’t be overlooked.

But flower-an-hour (Hibiscus trionum) can. I know I’ve mentioned it already this year (last year) but I still can’t believe I let this one pass under my radar for so long. This past summer I discovered a love for the way it weaves itself into the August garden here and there and pops open its flowers as if it doesn’t matter who sees how delicate their creamy white flowers are, and how deep their purple throat. But even if I might miss them, the bees never do.

I’m not usually that into purple flowers (or white ones for that matter) but my other diminutive favorite was Cuphea ‘Ballistic’. The ears! We’ve grown C. ‘David Verity’ from cuttings for years and can’t live without it; and we’re becoming just as addicted to ‘Carribean Sunset’ and Mexican giant cigar plant (C. micropetala) – so smitten with that one in fact that despite it nearly breaking our backs we brought our largest specimen back into the greenhouse. But honestly, it’s little ‘Ballistic’ that just gets me. Typical of cuphea, once it starts blooming it never stops and never needs deadheading either.

And what about the plants that would just as soon be walked on as noticed? Gail and I are both consumed with the notion of lawn alternatives and hoping to replace our own sorry looking lawns with anything that won’t waste endless resources – and doesn’t need weekly mowing. My kingdom for a carpet of chamomile underfoot…

Meanwhile, as I look back and we begin to cast forward to next season’s gardens, the eyelash begonias are beginning to bloom, and the maidenhair ferns are sprouting. I simply can’t help focusing on the littlest things.

What little things are you in love with?

While the weather is still so mild and the nights still so warm, it feels decidedly premature to bring plants back into the greenhouse. I’d much rather keep enjoying all the color out in the garden. (So much color!) But the time is absolutely right. It’s much easier on the plants if they come in with enough time to acclimatize before we close the vents and turn the heat back on. – That’s particularly important for houseplants and advice I really should be following at home, come to think of it…

Over the last few days we have brought cart load after heavy-back-breaking cartload of container plants back inside along with dozens of tender perennial stock plants. We’ve pushed aside the office supplies and made a colossal mess of the potting shed – it’s always gratifying to use this room (where I sit as I type surrounded by muddy tracks of potting soil) for its primary purpose – and it’s been amazing to watch the greenhouse transform from an airy bare-bones space back into a garden. (Click on pictures for larger view.)

Our one consolation for losing the plants in the (outside) garden is that they all look just as beautiful inside. Actually, there’s something about bringing plants indoors that makes them seem extra precious and lovely somehow. So lovely in fact that we decided the greenhouse is too nice not to linger in. We hope we will still have room for the livingroom ensemble after our collection of phormiums comes inside…

Have you started bringing the garden back inside?