Tough But Terrific	The Late Season Garden	Plants for the Late Season
Our New Reservoir Garden	Our Address

Those gardeners who collect plants are a discriminating and enthusiastic bunch. We want, lust after, and simply must have new hybrids, obscure native or exotic perennials from around the world. Though it is our badge of horticultural honor to successfully cultivate and grow the rare, unusual and tender; we all harbor a secret. It is a drawer full of plant labels and records of the many perennials that are no longer alive in our gardens. This process of winnowing out poor performers and too finicky plants is an invaluable though sometimes sad lesson. Chalk it up to the education of a gardener.

Regardless of size, style or the elaborateness of the herbaceous border, the most discriminating of gardeners relies on a backbone structure of tough but terrific perennials. We’ve all seen daylilies or peonies memorializing a long abandoned garden site. Hosta, epimedium and polygonatum are relics to more shady plots. The list of these hardy stalwart perennials is not small. I refer to Robert Hebb’s criteria from Low Maintenance Perennials as a benchmark; they are attractive foliage, study stems, disease resistance, longevity and the infrequent need for dividing.

The bigroot geranium (Geranium macrorrhizum) is another tough long-lasting perennial. It is densely bushy with round lobed leaves and spreads by creeping rhizomes that withstand root competition from dry shade to sun. In the foreground of a sunny border combine Geranium macrorrhizum with Sedum ‘Matrona,’ Persicaria virginiana ‘Lance Corporal’ and Hemerocallis ‘Happy Returns.’

The deep growing, fleshy roots of false indigo (Baptisia australis) give this prairie native longevity and tolerance from drought. Spikes of violet-blue flowers mature into black seedpods above glaucus-green foliage giving Baptisia a long season of beauty. In a sunny location it grows to shrub-like proportions, three feet tall. I have planted it as a low ‘hedge’ underplanted with daffodils and Heuchera ‘Pewter Veil.’

Once established with thick woody roots, moisture loving Cimicifuga racemosa (snakeroot), is very tolerant of dry shade and summer droughts. The six-foot high, white wands blooming in July dance in the shadow of dogwoods. The Asian species, Cimicifuga simplex blooms much later in September with sweetly fragrant flower spikes. The cultivar ‘Brunette’ has maroon foliage.

Tough and terrific perennials defines what we grow in the gardens and offer for sale at Tranquil Lake Nursery. Come and explore.

"Autumn in felted slipper shuffles on, Muted yet fiery, - Autumn’s character." Vita Sackville-West

I love the late season garden. It is full of dynamic contrasts – melding colorful late blooms, maturing fruit, fiery foliage and the plumes of ornamental grasses. The inertia of the season is compelling, and with a little preparation a gardener can sit back and leisurely enjoy the garden fireworks. After a spring and summer of planting, watering and weeding, the fuse is lit.

The display gardens at the Nursery are full of planting ideas that not only sustain the season of bloom but also offer winter structure and an early spring burst of color. September and early October is one of my favorite seasons in these gardens. It is also the best time to plan and plant your own garden for a fall fanfare and more.

Colorful foliage is the place to start when planning your late season garden. This is not limited to the fiery colors of turning autumn leaves. There are many herbaceous perennials and woody plants that offer sensational foliage color throughout the season into the fall.

Chartreuse foliage keeps the garden fresh, it is the color of emerging spring leaves. The yellow-green foliage of Spiraea japonica ‘White Gold’ defies the wear of summer heat and is still a fresh faced companion in late September with Aster novae-angliae ‘Purple Dome.’

The cutleaf form of staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina ‘Laciniata’) turns to flaming oranges and reds in October. The new cultivar ‘Tiger Eyes’ sports showy chartreuse, ferny leaves on red stem all summer long before turnings into an inferno of fall color. Combine Rhus ‘Tiger Eyes’ with Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia), the blue leaves of Panicum virgatum ‘Dallas Blues’, and a five foot tall, red blooming daylily, Hemerocallis ‘Challenger’ Add an even more statuesque Aster tataricus for a back of the border bonfire.

Violet-blue flowers and glaucus-blue foliage intensifies the flaming heat radiating as red, yellow and orange. Fothergilla x ‘Blue Shadow’ has foliage as blue as the bluest hosta. Growing to a five foot mounded shrub, this new blue-foliage form of the hardy, native witch alder blooms with bottle-brush white flowers in spring and orange fall colorations.

Plant Fothergilla x ‘Blue Shadow’in full sun to partial shade. Combine with the reddish leaves and orange hips of Rosa glauca, the maroon foliage of purple smokebush (Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’) and Weigela ‘Midnight Wine’, stiff goldenrod (Solidago rigida), Rudbeckia triloba and a foreground of Aster ‘Purple Dome,’ Yucca ‘Golden Sword’ and Sedum ‘Rosy Glow.’

Ninebark (Physocarpus) is a very hardy, drought resistant, native shrub that offers great versatility in a mixed border. Prune back hard in the spring, to easily control its height as a background for perennials flowers. The maroon leaves of Physocarpus opulifolius ‘Diablo’ creates a dusky background and an opportunity to add sparks of color. Hemerocallis ‘August Flame’ and the late season rebloom of Hemerocallis ‘Stella de Oro’ do the trick.

The dark leaves of ‘Diablo’ also accentuate the large, conical white panicles of late blooming hydrangea. Hydrangea paniculata ‘Tardiva’ blooms on new wood, so it is easy to control its height with early spring pruning. The flowers age to a silvery pink in This stone wall was built during last year’s Fall Festival and the drip fountain was added at the Spring Festival in April.

October. Lespedeza thunbergii, bush clover, is a fantastic late blooming shrub that is drought tolerant. Lespedeza blooms in late September and October in a cascading fountain of pink flowers. Plant Lespedeza in front of either Fothergilla ‘Blue Shadow’ or Physocarpus ‘Summer Wine.’

Colorful fruits add another dimension to the late season garden. One of my favorites is Aronia arbutifolia, red chokeberry. Aronia is a hardy native shrub that is tolerant of dry soils in full sun as well as moist soils in partial shade. The white spring flowers mature into clusters of red fruit that last all winter. Aronia’s fall foliage turns a blazing red. Aronia melanocarpa is a black-fruited species. Aronias are a beautiful companion to ornamental grasses. The black fruit are especially showy next to the reddish stems and leaves of Panicum virgatum ‘Shenandoah’ and the yellow umbels of Patrinia scabioifolia. Patrinia’s yellow umbel flower structure holds its color after the flower petals drop. The leaves also turn red, adding a heightened contrast to yellow.

The late season garden, though brilliant with colorful flowers, fruit and foliage is also bittersweet. The autumn season comes silently, ‘in felt slippers shuffles on’. What is inevitable is sharp cutting frost. Gardeners are ever mindful of the frosts and full moons.

In Vita Sackville-West poetry we are reminded that the beauty of the garden does not end with the change of the seasons. "So Autumn’s not the end, not the last rung of any ladder in the yearly climb, When that is deathly old which once was young, Since time’s no ladder but a constant wheel."

Our New Reservoir Garden

During the 2006 Fall Festival, we began work on what has become the newest display garden at Tranquil Lake Nursery, with the construction of a stone wall. This new garden is a renovation of one of the sunniest and driest beds at the nursery.

A venerable bird’s nest spruce that was planted at this location eighteen years ago anchors the garden. The garden features three parallel panels of water within a serpentine line. At one end is the new stone wall planted with sempervivums and sedums. The wall supports a drip fountain above a rectangular pool which was built during the 2007 Spring Festival. The other pools of water are still.

The pools are constructed using a rubber liner extending under a planting bed retained by a low stone shelf. The water level of the pools fluctuate as they fill with rainfall or evaporate. The soil in the planting beds stays moist. This is a contrast to the dust dry conditions outside of the perimeter of the rubber liner. The reservoir bed provides ideal cultural conditions for moisture loving plants, especially Japanese iris. Astilbe, trollius and even fragrant azaleas and clethra are also thriving here. Pots of Japanese iris and canna also grow within the water channel.

Along side these moist planting beds and the reflective water we planted a garden that is well suited to our dry sandy soils. Pea stone was used to form path surfaces and as a mulch around a drought tolerant planting of yucca, artemisia and sedum. Pots of lemon scented geranium, succulents and bromeliads add an exotic flavor.

Summer 2007 Newsletter

Tough But Terrific

Our New Reservoir Garden