Fall is a busy time for gardeners. While enjoying the final weeks of blooms and vegetables, garden folks are planning their spring gardens.
Although I haven’t yet quite gotten into the mood of thinking about spring, I have a good friend who, as usual, is on top of it and has a plan she is ready to execute in a few weeks.
By sowing seeds now, her garden will be bursting with blooms in the spring. That’s right, I said seeds, not bulbs. Most gardeners know to plant tulip bulbs in the fall, and I will talk more about that later, but for now, it’s all about seeds.
The ground is still warm, I suggest waiting until after the first frost to place the seeds in the ground, but now is the time to plan and prep the area. Just like when planting in the spring, once there is a plan, begin by clearing the area of weeds and grasses that have grown over the summer.
Although it may be too early to plant, it’s not too early to shop for seeds. Order them now before your first choices are sold out.
Blazing Star is a plant that produces spiky, pinky-purple blooms that attract pollinators to your garden. Butterfly weed is another seed to plant now for those beautiful, orange blooms next year.
Rudbeckia, or Black-Eyed Susan’s seeds planted now will sleep through the winter before producing in the spring. The same is true for echinacea or cone flowers. These perennials are often bought as plants in the spring. Why not try to grow them from seeds this fall?
Want to attract butterflies? Plant Joe Pye Weed and milkweed seeds. Butterflies can’t resist, and the milkweed will feed the endangered Monarch butterflies.
Cornflowers, or Bachelor Buttons, are an annual related to daisies, asters, and sunflowers. This is another good choice. Scabiosa, commonly called pincushion flower blooms, won’t last long but look lovely as dried flowers when mixed into arrangements.
My friend is planting Nigella, or Love in a Mist. Although not a flower often seen in modern gardens, it has a dainty flower and airy green foliage. As the bloom fades, the seedpods look like fairy lanterns sprinkled through the garden.
Planting seeds in the fall mimics what happens naturally in the garden. As the summer blooms fade, plants drop their blossoms to the ground where, if not carefully managed, many will self-seed over the winter.
Whether seeds are planted by a gardener or nature, they bury in the ground. There, they go through a process called stratification. This means the seeds freeze and thaw at the outdoor temperature throughout the winter months. Then the miracle happens; somehow, the seeds or bulbs know it’s time to wake up, germinate, and grow. Maybe this is because of the warming of the soil or the increased daylight, but either way, nature is amazing.
Stratification can happen indoors. That’s why bulbs and seeds are refrigerated over the winter. The planting instructions often say to stratify the seeds before planting, so check the labels.
If you are undecided about the final location, do the fall planting in containers. They can be left outside, but I might move them close to a wall to help protect them from the wind. Remember, even though they are in containers and soil, they are above ground and get colder faster than seeds snuggled in the ground.
The soil is dry. As I plant this fall at the little house on a big hill, I will water the new seeds; not a lot, but just once or twice before winter frost wets the ground.
Now, as we begin October, this gardener will gather seeds and walk the garden with thoughts of what to add and start the process of planting for spring.
