Pay attention to the most beautiful gardens in your own neighborhood and you will see that it’s often the shrubs that carry the garden seamlessly through the year. Regardless of the season, shrubs contour and outline garden spaces and give a sense of privacy and enclosure. Many shrubs use the color of their flowers to bring a garden vignette to life. A red-hot rhododendron looks great against a creamy yellow house wall. The clear salmon pink blossoms of the flowering quince Chaenomeles x superba “Cameo” are elegant trained on a copper trellis.
Many gardeners build their first garden on one impulse purchase after another. They buy a perennial hibiscus at the grocery store because its huge, deep red flower blossoms shout, “Buy me!” even if they know nothing about hibiscus. They pick up an unknown variegated shrub dogwood for its dazzling foliage with no idea of where it will fit in the garden. Although each of the individual plants they add to the garden is beautiful, the result of this type of plant collecting is often a hodge-podge of colors, shapes and textures.
I’ve been there myself, trying to stuff one more vine between two shrubs that were already growing into each other for lack of space. When the only place left to grow was up I reached for the sky. Unplanned gardens seldom compare to the visual impact of a garden based on thoughtful planning. In the same breath, I have to add that some of the most fabulous plants in my garden were bought on the spur of the moment and some of my favorite gardens started as a hot mess. Bringing it all together over time is one of the delights of gardening.
Taking a chance
Many years ago, I splurged on an unfamiliar cultivar of sambucus called “Madonna.” I already knew from experience that sambucus, commonly known as elderberry, did particularly well in my garden. They grew wild in the woods. I had no idea where I was going to squeeze it in but I had to have it. Even in a 1-gallon pot this member of the elderberry family was handsome and the finely serrated, chartreuse foliage with creamy white variegation proved to be a particular highlight along the pathway in my woodland garden.
Somewhere between the vagaries of impulse buying and overplanning we will find a design style that fits our garden personality. This comfort zone seems to occur once we have come to know our gardens well enough to picture them in our own mind. We see an attractive plant in a nursery and we are able to envision it in a specific place in our garden. With time and diligence we learn to see the beauty in our garden as it is in the moment.
This is one of the best times of year to buy and plant ornamental grasses for your garden. Choose varieties for their seed heads and fall stem color. I’m partial to the slender, elegant stature of the feather reed grasses, especially Calamagrostis “Karl Foerster.” Grasses are playing a larger role in many Northwest gardens for their year-round beauty but fall is when they truly come into their own. Plant them where the setting sun will light the waving stems from behind.
Since I have personally encouraged fellow gardeners to plant and transplant over the next few months, I find it imperative to repeat the phrase, “Water what you plant.” Sometimes the feeling of autumn in the air fools us into believing that the need to water has passed. This is only true if the changing weather is accompanied by actual moisture. By that I don’t mean dew in the morning or mist in the air, but measurable amounts of rain.
To transplant evergreens successfully, water well for several days both before and after the move. Evergreen shrubs and trees, broad leaved as well as certain conifers, may need protection against the drying effect of winter sun and wind. This is especially true of any broad-leaved evergreens on the borderline of hardiness or in an exposed site. The chief concern is to ensure that water is not lost from the foliage more rapidly than it can be replaced by the roots.
As plants enter the natural process of dormancy, they are still performing many biological functions that require substantial water. The continuous process of hardy cell production requires adequate water which ensures the plant’s survival through the winter months. My basic formula for new plantings is to water deeply once a day for a week, once a week for a month and again, water well if the soil around new transplants is dry for any extended period of time.
Robb Rosser is a WSU-certified master gardener. Reach him at Write2Robb@aol.com
