September Gardening

September is a quiet time. The light is beautiful, and the garden is ripe. The children are back at school and the days are comfortable.

It’s a time to pause and take a breath. It’s a time to enjoy the garden…and begin to make plans for next year!

Divide perennials as soon as the rains begin.

Purchase spring-flowering bulbs this month.

Take cuttings of those annuals you want to keep over: coleous, impatiens, geraniums.

Hardwood cuttings can be made this month, too.

Prepare for fall lawn treatment: sift the compost, buy the best seed for your sun conditions, check on your supplies for amending the lawn (bonemeal, bloodmeal, rock phosphate, alfalfa pellets, whatever you use to give a fall treat to your lawn).

Clean up lightly. Rake up leaves on the lawn (if you still have one), but leave some clutter and debris on your garden for over-wintering invertebrates including queen bumble bees. Remember that invertebrates are essential to your garden and to the world. Help them over-winter safely and securely.

Gather seeds to propagate some of your favourite plants. Let some of the plants that you liked this summer go to seed for surprises next year and for winter birds.

Get ready to move tender bulbs (glads, dahlias) and plants (brugmansias) indoors.

And save time for walking in the garden noting what worked and what didn’t work. Make reminder notes for winter planning and spring planting.

Enjoy September – the sun, the maturity, the sounds of bees by day and crickets at night.

Soft September, silent and still, waiting for frosted nights.

Pollinator Patches

"Be the change you want to see in the world." When Mahatma Gandhi said that he must have been thinking about Pollinator Patches. You can make a difference in your world this year by creating a Pollinator Patch -- a habitat for butterflies and native bees and other insects.

Set aside a portion of your garden or maybe your boulevard to be devoted to native plants that pollinators will love. Plan your Patch in a sunny spot that will attract bees and other insects. There is lots of information on the Web about what native plants you may want to choose.

You might want to go beyond your personal bounds and plant a Patch on public ground. You’ll need permission to do this but municipalities are conscious of the need for native plants for insects and may be very glad to have you head a native planting group.

Although your planting is designed to be a haven for butterflies and other insects, your focus right now should be on the Monarch Butterfly. The butterfly has been assessed as endangered by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.

To attract and save Monarchs, be sure to plant a stand of milkweed in your Pollinator Patch. Milkweed is critical to the life cycle of Monarch Butterflies. The butterflies will hunt for milkweed and only milkweed for egg laying. They will lay their eggs on the underside of the leaves. Plants of the milkweed family are also the hosts of Monarch larvae. The resulting larvae will eat only milkweed leaves. No milkweed -- no Monarchs.]

If you don't want to plant ordinary milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) in your garden, consider Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) instead.

For bees and other butterflies, yellow, red and orange plants of the composite type are especially interesting. Rudbeckias and asters are the easiest to grow. Coreopsis is another plant loved by bees and butterflies. Research on the web for other plants for your Pollinator Patch.

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” Plant a Pollinator patch this year.

The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us. --- E. O. Wilson

Jottings

Jottings contains some articles I wrote for the monthly newsletter of Barrie's Garden Club and other projects. I hope you enjoy them.

It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment. Ansel Adams (1902 - 1984)

Hints & Tricks

This is a collection of neat ideas and crazy tricks that I've collected from various sources. Many are amusing, and most are useful. We gardeners just love to learn neat little ways of doing our gardening jobs more effectively. My most popular talk was just that: "Hints and Tricks."

Most of the hints I've used myself or know someone who will vouch for them. All of them are fun to read and almost as much fun to do.

We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it's forever. Carl Sagan (1934 - 1996)

Gardening Info

This is a miscellaneous section of odds and sods of information I've collected and would like to share. I've found most of the information in magazines and on the internet or in the many gardening books I can't resist buying!

You'll also find some of my favourite links on the Gardening Info page.

"Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the F.D.A.’s job." ~ Philip Angell, Monsanto's Director of Communications (October 1998)

The Blog

I guess the whole site is a sort of blog, isn't it?

But this newer section is a more conventional blog -- a space to put my thoughts and new ideas as I learn them or think them.