Never, never, never give up ... on the gardening season

To quote Winston Churchill: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” The gardening season, that is. Soon enough, we’ll be flooded with advice about cleaning up or putting the garden to bed, but we still have a glorious fall ahead. It is, however, a good time to be thinking about next year’s garden. There’s much can be done now to ensure another successful season.

Gardens do become tired and sometimes need a refresh. As we move into cooler days, I’ll be moving plants around, something I do more than I should. I confess, I have been known to move a plant a couple of times before I’m happy with it — OK, three times. I do it in the hope a new location will improve its health or appearance. For the past month I’ve been making notes on what works, what doesn’t, and what has changed.

For instance, the miserable honeysuckle has to go. It is the end for it. After annual attacks by aphids, I’ve had enough; move the spiderwort to the front of the bed because of the enthusiastic amsonia that’s now hiding it; plant sweet woodruff under the corkscrew hazel to take advantage of the shade there. And so it goes.

Some plants always perform well, others grow much larger than planned. There are lazy plants, ones that are aggressive, and some that are unpredictable. I’m always making hopeless guesses about how a plant will behave in a new spot. Sure, there are many reliable plants such as hostas and day lilies, but seeing a first bloom on a rare species is like scoring a touchdown or making a hole in one.

Plants can be inconsistent for any number of reasons — heat, cold, sunlight, soil, moisture, insects, disease, and the garden or gardener. Guessing the cause can be a challenge, and there’s not always an obvious solution, other than keep trying.

Hydrangeas, for instance, bloom well one year and then, for no apparent reason, decide to take the summer off. The cause — who knows for sure? Blame the weather. This summer I heard from a number of gardeners that their morning glories failed to bloom or were extremely late. This year, by chance, I happened to try an old variety, a double called Sunrise Serenade. I think the seeds arrived as a promotion with a seed catalogue. This particular morning glory mounted an assault on a trellis in early summer and hasn’t stopped blooming since. I keep my distance as I walk by because the trellis has vanished. As plants die off late in the year, I expect it to slowly reappear like a jungle choked ruin of a forgotten civilization.

Besides sorting out existing plants, I have others still in pots that have been waiting their turn to be added to the garden when the weather cools and space opens up. I really shouldn’t go near garden centres in August when perennials are half price or less, as are trees and shrubs. It’s good to be planting right now because there’s plenty of time to get them established before winter. They might be a bit rootbound after spending the summer in a

pot, so tease out the roots a little if you find they are.

This is also the time to be thinking about houseplants, the ones that have been summering outdoors. Bring them in soon before nights grow colder, so it won’t be much of a shock. Tropical plants don’t appreciate being suddenly moved from what for them are unnaturally cool temperatures into a warm, low light house. This is one reason why they suddenly begin losing their leaves.

When that happens, it might just be the beginning of the end, at least for that plant.

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David Hobson gardens in Waterloo. Email: garden@gto.net. Mail: In the Garden, The Record, 160 King St. E., Kitchener, Ont. N2G 4E5