Gardner shares ways to make your flowers, landscape linger into the fall
1:16 p.m. Monday, September 1, 2008
Lawrence — This is the time of year, avid gardeners will be on the prowl for new life that adds seasonal color to their otherwise weary, burned-out yards.
Local nurseries offer a profusion of plants that give instant gratification in the garden.
"Probably the easiest ones on that is the mums and they come in an assorted colors. There's reds, yellows, pinks, whites, purples, and they're instant. They're blooming now," said Anne Peuser, an employee with the Clinton Parkway Garden Center in Lawrence. "In the landscape, they might not be blooming now because they've been forced -- the ones your buying now -- but if it stays cool, like it has been, they will bloom a long time."
Other suggestions for immediate fall color are kale and pansies, although neither is available quite yet.
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"Pansies planted, you know, you'll get some cold, and you think they're not going to make it. In the ground, they'll probably make it all winter long. And there's not prettier, bigger, brighter pansy than one that's been planted in the fall," she said. "The kale, depending upon the weather, will last 'til January."
Fall is also the ideal time to tend to your home turf.
"The month of September is the best time to reseed your lawn. And I tell people Labor Day weekend is the best," Peuser said. "If you need to you over seed it, verti-cut it two ways, bring all that thatch up, get it off of there, reseed and then fertilize and water."
And don't forget to plant for delayed gratification next season.
The one people forget the most are spring flowering bulbs, tulips, daffodils, crocus, and hyacinths, among others.
"Those guys bloom in the spring, but you have to plant them in the fall," she said.
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