Learn to Love ... Fall Blooms

It's fall... How does your garden look? Notice any drab areas? Does the garden look like it is "done" for the season? Wait, don't give up on your garden! For long lasting colour add any, or perhaps all, of these prolific fall bloomers to your garden.

The peak blooming season for dahlias is August - September. There are thousands of types of different dahlias. You can find a suitable dahlia for any garden situation - for potting up in containers, for edging the front of borders, for mixing in and complementing other blooming perennials, or for providing an impressive backdrop of the border. Dahlia flowers come in an infinite range of vibrant colours, shapes (eg. cactus, pompon, anemone-flowers etc) and bloom sizes. Some make excellent cut flowers. Select the right dahlia for the right spot, or purpose, and you will not be disappointed. Dahlias like full sun, but are not fussy about soil as long as it is well draining.

Dahlias will often keep blooming until the foliage is killed by the first hard frost. After frost, cut away the dead foliage and gently fork or dig up the tubers. Store the tubers in a cool, dry & dark spot. Here on Mayne Island, BC you can take your chances and leave them in the ground covered with a layer of mulch. Just watch out for slugs in spring - they destroy emerging dahlia shoots. Many gardeners prefer to: dig up the tubers in fall, store them over winter, pot them up in containers March-April, and then plant them out in the garden late April or early May. There are many excellent dahlia growers here in BC. Spend some time this winter browsing their online catalogues. I've already assembled a list of "must have" dahlias for next year's garden - Brown sugar, Daisy Duke, Downham Royal...

Heleniums are also long-blooming perennial flowers. They will start blooming early August and bloom till October. These erect, clump-forming herbaceous perennials grow 60 cm - 1.5m tall from a crown of resting shoots with shallow, fibrous roots. They look best if they are massed together in groups of three to five plants. The individual daisy shaped flowers are small (2.5 - 5 cm), but each plant produces masses of bright flowers. The flowers will attract bees, butterflies, moths and beetles to the garden. The flower colours are warm and cheerful - bright yellow to gold, warm orange, coppery brown and deep red. Heleniums are interesting flowers as their appearance evolves over time. As the flowers age, the colour changes, the petals droop, and the middle evolves into a high round brown knob loaded with rings of pollen. Extend the blooming season by deadheading the old flowers. When you see new flowers developing lower down the stem just snip off the whole terminal cluster of flowers with shears. Some great varieties include: Helenium 'Rubinzwerg', Helenium 'Sahin's Early Flowerer', and Helenium 'Moreheim Beauty'. The spike flowers of salvias are perfect companions for helenium flowers.

Helenium 'Moerheim Beauty' with Salvia 'Black and Bloom' blooming mid September.

Salvias will start blooming in early summer. Some varieties (eg. Salvia 'Caradonna') will have a big early bloom and then, if the flowering stems are cut to the ground, bloom again in late summer. Other varieties, like Salvia 'Black and Bloom', start blooming in mid-summer and then just keep on blooming. Removing old flowering stems will keep the salvia blooming for a long time. Salvias are very attractive to pollinators such as hummingbirds, butterflies and bees. They are members of the "mint" family and some have fragrant foliage. Salvias are heat and drought tolerant. Most not only survive, but will thrive in poor soil. Salvias are a large group of plants and include: woody shrubs, herbaceous perennials and tender annuals. The different types of salvia require different pruning approaches. Snipping off the dead flowers will extend the blooming period for most salvias. For all salvias leave the annual pruning till after winter. For the herbaceous salvias (deciduous and evergreen), wait till you see new growth at the base of the plants and then cut back the old stems down to the ground. Examples of herbaceous salvias include Salvia nemorosa 'Caradonna' and Salvia guaranitica 'Black and Bloom'.

For the woody or shrubby salvias like Salvia microphylla 'Hot Lips' (above), again wait till spring and then remove any tangled, diseased or dead wood, then cut back the woody stems one third to one half. These woody salvias may seem 'lifeless' in spring, but if you wait long enough (sometimes even into May) you will see new growth emerging along the wooden stems. There are also many beautiful tender salvias (eg. Salvia coccininea) that are prolific bloomers but perhaps best treated as annuals in our gardens or containers. So, what are you waiting for? It's not too late to add some vibrancy to your borders.

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