From The Gardens

While there are many choices for colorful plants for the late season, the following perennials are some of the best in terms of ease of care and beauty.   All these plants require full sun and healthy garden soil.

First are the old standbys Chrysanthemums, which for many of us are not reliable perennials.   Although I have encountered a few truly hardy mums, most will not make it through our CNY winters.  Better to just buy pots of them in the fall and treat them as annuals.  A heavy winter mulch helps, depending on the variety.  Since the roots are fairly shallow, the plants seem to have no trouble living until January or February.  It’s the alternate freezing and thawing in February and March that puts an end to their life.

Perennial asters, on the other hand, are extremely hardy.  Most bloom in the fall and come in a variety of colors and heights.  My preference is for the shorter Aster (A. nova belgii.) The taller Asters, (A. nova angliae) cultivars have lost favor because through out summer the lower leaves on the plant turn brown and fall off, so that by the end of August these plants bloom on very unattractive tall skinny legs.  This characteristic is not as noticeable in the shorter varieties such as “Professor Kippenberg”.

Recently I grew a beautiful aster called “Raydon’s Favorite”.  It was one of the last plants to bloom in late September at about 30 inches tall.   Foliage was green and attractive throughout the season.  The plant displayed masses of lavender blue flowers with yellow centers until the end of the flowering season, which was late October last year.
Asters are very cooperative in the garden, and sometimes even seed themselves around.  Hybrid garden varieties are, after all, relatives of the roadside beauties.   Division in the spring nearly every year is necessary to keep them healthy and happy.

Another large group of fall blooming perennials are  the sedums.  Nearly every garden contains the ever popular Sedum “Autumn Joy”.  It always looks good and has no insect problems or diseases.  Among the most interesting sedums are those that have foliage in a color than green.  There is the yellow and green foliage of Sedum mediovariagata,  and the green and white foliage of the new cultivar “Frosty Morn”.  Both of these have rather pale, not very attractive pink flowers, but the foliage is wonderful all season.

Several  hybrid forms of upright sedum have  beautiful burgundy colored foliage, among them are the relatively new  “Mohrchen” which has shiny dark red foliage and bright rosy red flowers and  “ Matrona” which  has deep gray leaves with dark purple red stems and huge pale pink  flower heads.

Other favorite sedums are Sedum cauticaula, with very blue foliage and Sedum sieboldi, also bluish with bright rose colored flowers.  The pink flowered “ Vera Jameson” and Sedum “Rosy Glow” have purplish stems and leave.  The form of these plants is quite lax, so they are attractive in the front of the border or in a rock garden.