Fall Asters

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Wild asters blooming in a flower bed, with straw and annuals near the front, and a bridged path in the background

 

Wild asters have an almost magical appearance when you see them up close, with beadlike buds floating among bloomed flowers. My garden is full of asters in the fall, a super plant for pollinators. They can be weedy and spread a lot, but in springtime when they get to be about 8 inches high, they’re easily uprooted anytime you want to cull them back. Asters triple in size in late summer getting ready to flower, but most of the gardening season they’re unobtrusive. In the foreground of this photo is a section of the bed I’ve built up using container and hanging basket plants. Containers get tired by the end of the season, but the plants revive when you put them in the ground.

 

Red zinnias, lemon marigolds, and white wild asters blooming in a flower bed

 

These State Fair zinnias are the biggest attraction for large species of butterflies. I’ve done well this year with monarchs, not only having a breeding pair, but some recent visitors with bright orange scales, so they’ve probably just hatched. All the large butterflies–tigers, zebras, black swallowtails, fritillaries, monarchs–were more numerous this summer than the last few years, and several types were breeding. Late summer/fall I also have tons of tiny butterflies, but I can never get a good look at them for identification. Leaving grasses to grow tall is the best way to make a habitat, that tiny butterflies will definitely use. The other flowers above are lemon-colored marigolds, a tall variety, and the fall asters. 

 

Woodland path with light green planters and pots also light green, others terra cotta and orange, and fall leaves on the ground

 

A rainy day woodland path, with mellow greens and terra cottas. The deer have eaten a lot of leaves off the caladiums, but one is hanging on next to a flowering tobacco.

Late summer Hosts

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Pigweed is always seen in this condition. It’s one of the most utilized plants by insects, small rodents, and birds. Pigweed is in the Amaranthus family and has nutritious seeds, that humans can feed on as well (thinking of our climate change future, where we may have to learn to forage), though it’s often written about as an agricultural nuisance. Pigweed attracts flea beetles and hunting beetles, skipper butterflies, and moth species.

 

 

This is blue vervain, a great native you can buy from nurseries that sell native plants. It has tiny flowers, but so numerous they’re showy, too. An advantage of tiny-flowered plants is that native pollinators can use them, while larger-flowered plants may be taken over by honey bees. These leaves look just the way we want our native garden leaves to look, full of feeding holes. The Common Buckeye is a butterfly that feeds on blue vervain.

 

 

Here is bitter dock, or broadleaf dock. This plant is native to Europe, but long naturalized in North America. Bitter dock can be a host to the American Copper butterfly. Some creature has been feeding on this, while not making holes in the pokeweed next to it. I have several areas in my garden where I let things grow as they appear. Tall grasses, wildflowers that show up, make little patches of meadow, and these protect dozens of tiny moths and butterflies that feed and shelter in them. You can see moths spring up as you walk through your meadow areas.

 

Pushing The Zone with Loropetalum

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Photo of yellow arborvitae under cloches, purple-leaved loropetalum, and abelia

 

I live in zone 6B, in southeastern Ohio. The terrain is hilly, and the soil is clay, but we have a lot of forest. My town is in a river valley, and my house is basically in the wider flood zone, meaning the soil in my yard is clay with a top layer of humus, formed by cycles of silt and decaying plant material. So my zone 6B is accommodating to plants that are rated hardy to zone 7. If you live in a flat, sandy, and windy 6B, you might not have much margin for zone pushing. (Zone pushing is planting a non-hardy variety for your zone and either putting it to the test, to see if it can survive a zone up, or building it a microclimate.) I wanted to try this with a Loropetalum for two reasons. Because the foliage is beautiful, and because deer don’t like them. I chose Purple Pixie Dwarf Weeping Loropetalum because it sits low to the ground—a six foot variety could not be protected from winter wind. I sited my Purple Pixie, as you can see above, on a slight elevation with a log protecting the roots. That gives it both the drainage and moisture it wants. It’s in full sun, and will get winds, blowing mostly from the southwest, but I put three Anna’s Magic Ball arborvitae in front of it. I have them protected under cloches that also should break up the wind, and because they’re slow-growing, they may be able to stay protected for a couple of years, protecting the Loropetalum in the process. I have a Brilliantina Abelia planted behind. To the left is a stand of Achillea. It’s still experimental, and I won’t know until next spring whether my Purple Pixie has survived, but if it can, it’ll be a lovely and deer-resistant shrub along my path. 

 

New Seeds and Plants (part two)

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Photo of a wire tomato ladder that has been twisted and destroyed by a deer

Deer damage, a wire tomato ladder twisted apart

 

Aside from eating plants, deer can mess up your things by getting silly antlers stuck in fencing and plant supports, then writhing free. Those ladders cost $14. Another thing deer do is yank pieces from shrubs or uproot plants from the ground, just for the sake of tasting them. When they don’t like what they’ve grabbed, they toss it aside. And as I wrote a while back, they rub on trees of a certain size, stripping off bark and breaking branches.

Here are the rest of the seeds I’ve ordered this year.

Notes: Chocolate Pear tomato seeds were a free gift two years ago. They were the only tomatoes that produced for me in the drought. They have a tart flavor, and are good added whole to sandwiches and soups.

Mealycup salvia (Victoria Blue) is not destroyed by slugs. Vinca (not the same plant as creeping periwinkle) looks a lot like impatiens, though flowers less prolifically. Deer won’t eat it.

Park seeds are more expensive, but they have the best selection of petunias.

Tithonia (Fiesta del Sol) is very attractive to monarch butterflies, which have taken a bad hit from last year’s weather.

Dara, a Queen Anne’s lace variety with red and pink colors, is too beautiful not to grow, but needs sprayed or netted against deer.

Browallia, Ridolfia, Talinum, and Standing Cypress are my plants to try for the first time this year. 

 

Seeds N Such

744 Old German tomato vegetable

755 Black Krim tomato vegetable

724 Chocolate Pear tomato vegetable

1200 Gazania annual

1391 Cherry Brandy rudbeckia perennial

1389 Goldstrum rudbeckia perennial

1453 Victoria Blue salvia annual

1340 Vinca annual

1226 Candy Mix zinnia annual

 

Park Seed

51432 Starship Deep Rose lobelia perennial

54155 Petchoa Calliburst Yellow annual

54140 Sweet Taffy Mix Wave petunia annual

54162 Moonlight petunia annual

54154 Superbissima petunia annual

01802 Salvia Blue Queen perennial

00024 Summer Berries achillea perennial

 

Scheepers Kitchen Seeds

7204 Black Ball Bachelor’s Buttons annual

8340 Balloon Flower perennial

7235 Browallia annual

7295 Chabaud Carnations annual

7360 Early Sunrise Coreopsis perennial

8290 Dara biennial

7500 Heliotrope annual

8715 Fiesta del Sol tithonia annual

8390 Double Rose Moss annual

8250 Nicotiana annual 

 

Select Seeds

S1746 Agastache Licorice White perennial 

S464OG Ridolfia Goldspray annual 

S1922 Snapdragon Copper Queen annual 

S1870 Snapdragon Madame Butterfly annual 

S522 Talinum Kingwood Gold annual 

S113 Standing Cypress annual 

S2011 Flowerburst Red Shades achillea perennial 

 

New Seeds and Plants (part one)

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Photo of garden bench with six inches of snow on seat

The big snow of early January, about six inches.

 

It’s time again to order seeds and plants. My prime goal this year is reducing deer and rabbit losses. They were terrible through the drought summer we had in 2024, and this January’s sequence of heavy snow and arctic cold has kept the snow on the ground, and meant more branch-tips on my evergreens getting nipped. My shrubs are sad-looking, but I hope they’ll fill out well in spring.

Deer spray is a nuisance, but this year I’ll try filtering it so the fatty stuff that makes it stick to leaves doesn’t clog and break my spray nozzles. I’ve found some wire cloches to order, and for my smallest starts, the cotinus, red osier dogwood, and fothergilla I’ve planted at the edge of my yard, those ought protect them through summer. I’m trying to make my deer defenses a little prettier and more invisible, because I’ve been using rabbit-fencing cages and a ragtag bunch of stakes, and it doesn’t make the garden elegant.

I made a space I call Daylily Island, where I moved all the daylilies and several heucheras. I can put up some decorative fencing, and maybe enjoy the blooms without having to hustle out and spray them every time it rains. (Which doesn’t keep my daylilies from being eaten, anyway.) 

This is what I’ve ordered, with item numbers, from Pinetree Garden Seeds. I’ve shopped with them for years; they have good prices, quick service, friendly people. As gardeners know, inflation has really been crazy in plants and seeds. (I remember the 90s, when a quart perennial would cost maybe $7.99.)

 

544 Anise Hyssop perennial

551 Chives perennial

547 Catnip perennial

48003 Narrow Leaf Echinacea perennial

58502 Mountain Mint perennial

624 Dusty Miller annual

728 Baby Sun Coreopsis perennial

62103 Carpet Mix Cosmos annual

62106 Sonata Dwarf Mix Cosmos annual

62203 Showpiece Mix Dahlia annual

73707 Mellow Yellow Echinacea perennial

959 Strawberry Fields Gomphrena annual

70902 Burning Hearts Heliopsis perennial

70808 Helen’s Flower Helenium perennial

640 Giant Imperial Mix Larkspur annual

65501 Safari Red Marigold annual

65506 Giant Yellow Marigold annual

77705 Prairie Sun Rudbeckia perennial

77702 Indian Summer Rudbeckia perennial

69801 State Fair Mix Zinnia annual

 

There are a couple things on this list that I’ve seen deer eat: the dahlias and the coreopsis. Those need protection, but deer don’t really like them. Dahlias have that piney smell, and seem to be eaten later, during the fall-fattening-up time. Coreopsis can be eaten to the nubs, but I think the culprit is rabbits. Heliopsis, rudbeckia, and coneflower will get the flower buds nipped, but start toughening up and getting prickly as they mature, so the flowers begin to survive. 

A Few Garden Notes

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Photo of ledge made with landscaping stones

 

Here’s a way to achieve a few things in your nature garden, when you’re depending on products you can buy at the store. Boulders from a landscaper would be great, but a lot of us can’t afford them, and the labor to have them delivered and placed. This type of concrete paver is made to look like a natural flagstone, and it’s not too heavy for a woman to pick up and carry across the yard. What I’ve done is lay them on top of blocks standing about four inches high. This mimics a rock shelf of the forest, and the space underneath the pavers gives shelter to (with luck), some of the small snakes that are good garden citizens, or a toad or two. Because the ledge provides shelter, it has some power to discourage rabbits, who don’t trust spots a predator might lurk. The elevation of the pavers casts a shadow to about a foot beyond their edge, which helps retain water.  The roots of the cryptomeria above are protected; many shrubs will thrive better with root cover.  If you create a ledge like this on a slope, you also slow down erosion and the flow of water. And you can put summer containers on top. 

 

Photo of invading weeping willow

 

I’ve lived at my house fourteen years. One of the neighbors has a weeping willow tree. But this drought year was the first time I saw willows sprouting up all over my yard. I think I had seven or eight places where I found them. At first, they looked like perennials of some kind, but as the summer progressed, the stems got woody. I’ve pulled them all out. The stems were shallow-rooted, so I’m not sure they didn’t come from seeds. But I think their spreading in the summer of 2024 was definitely a response to lack of rain stress.

 

Photo of small tub pond and surrounding plants

 

This is my little pond when I first put it in, a couple of years ago. Everything is so tidy. Nice little carex, Bleeding Hearts heliopsis, and a few sages. Once the wildlife started in on my pond, the plants got eaten and torn up, and I changed them for hardier things that could take all the traffic. I also put in a couple of those same pavers as protective stones, to shelter the goldfish I have living in there. This past summer, I had a frog that kept getting bigger and bigger, so I think it was a bullfrog. I doubt tadpoles could survive, because of the fish, but the fish is a natural mosquito control. I usually have to add two to four gallons of water to this tub every day. That’s a good measure of how important even a small water feature can be to local wildlife. They know it’s here, and they need a reliable source of water, even when it rains like it ought to. 

 

Deer Damage

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Photo of landscaping stones

 

At the top is a photo I was going to share, but didn’t get around to writing the post. You can see my nice juniper, and the little plantings curving around it. I did have my hydrangea protected, since I know deer like to eat them. But I never thought I’d have a male deer tearing my trees apart with its antlers. The Rose of Sharon I talked about a couple of posts ago, that I’m trying to tree form, got attacked too. I think both will survive, since they’re both mature and have good root systems, but I may have to grow the Rose of Sharon as a shrub, or take a long time to get a leader back. The juniper, too, still has healthy growth down below, but it was such a nice tree. I think the drought has made the deer more destructive this year, and they’re ranging farther for food and water. I would thank them not to treat my yard as a territory for marking, though. 😐

Ohio Drought 2024

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The very parched grass, seen behind my new driveway planting. I don’t water lawn, but I water plants I want to keep (which is all of them). The Caryopteris is blooming beautifully in its first year, started from a quart-size pot, and grown to a respectable shrub. I’ve had dozens of tiny butterflies in my garden late in the season. A couple of skippers are on the flowers, but hard to see in this photo. Caryopteris is a huge pollinator attractor. I’m still getting the effect of yellow (Chamaecyparis) and blue I chose these shrubs for, so considering we’ve had three rains from late June to mid-September, I’m not doing badly with several of the vignettes in my flower beds.

 

 

I mentioned a while back that I had a volunteer Rose of Sharon I was training to a tree form, to climb a clematis on. I didn’t know what color it would be. But what a great gift, to end up with this pale pink! I’ve never seen a Rose of Sharon this color outside of the brand new ones they’re breeding—and since this tree form’s an experiment, I wouldn’t want to spend a lot of money on it. It also has lobed leaves…a different genetic profile altogether, for whatever reason.  Whether the clematis will survive can’t be told til next spring.

 

Photo of hanging basket with petunia and lysimachia

 

I’ve been keeping hanging baskets watered, though I had to retire a few, emptying the basket and planting the whole arrangement into a border where it could get more shade. The first picture above was taken June 27, and the second September 13. This “Honey” Supertunia and the red Superbena are great as a pair. The basket behind has red Superbena, Tradescantia, and a black-leaved sweet potato vine. These two baskets are holding up and giving my money’s worth. We’re in the season of super-hungry deer, so I never know if even garlic-sprayed plants will be waiting for me tomorrow.

Masses In The Habitat

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Photo of raised planters under shade trees

 

Photo of raised planters in spring with blooming rhododendron nearby

 

Photo of raised bed planter with astilbe and impatiens

 

The three photos above show my raised planters between one of my oaks and the bed at the back of the garage. I think these tubs measure 20 inches wide by 17 high. As I said in an earlier post, I added them because the oak roots are so dense here that nothing grows well, groundcover-wise. I had this six-foot space always covered in leaves, and I wanted plants. 

The tubs do more than hold heucheras, bleeding hearts, etc. As planters alone, they don’t need to be as tall as they are. But they serve as a series of masses in the understory of this oak, and that’s beneficial to wildlife, as well as to the goal of a water-retentive, microclimated landscape. (The tubs won’t harm the tree, because the roots grow right up into them, and trees in nature love masses protecting their understory. The woods are full of rocks and fallen logs, full of trees growing right next to other trees, but we plant our yard trees in naked isolation, steal away their fall leaves, then decide anything sitting on their roots is bad for them!)

Masses are anything that has mass, including large rocks, logs, tree stumps, living trees, large containers and planters, certain garden furniture or statuary. Mass functions as a temperature moderator, a collector and distributor of warmth. Mass also acts as a windbreak, sheltering anything leeward from desiccating winds, or severely hot or cold winds. Mass casts shadow, which helps protect plants nearby from foliar evaporation, and lets moisture from rainfall last longer in the soil. Mass provides shelter and homes for wildlife.

Masses are also part of a tiering system, that prevents heavy rains from rushing over the soil surface, so that you lose both the water and a portion of your topsoil. In garden habitats, where human-created structures mix with nature, all our raised beds (whether you like this corrugated metal type, or Corten steel, or railroad ties…), serve as masses—and the more areas of mass we add, the more our garden can defend itself against droughty weather, or too-cold, too-hot, too-rainy weather.