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Season Extenders

© Keith Muraoka

Welcome to the in-between garden season! Yes, this is the time of year when your petunias are pooped and your marigolds may no longer be merry. Yet, thanks to the fact we live in such a great climate, many summer annuals will continue to bloom right through Thanksgiving – with a little care.

What little care you ask? Well, for two things, continue to water and fertilize your garden. I always fertilize with a no-nitrogen fertilizer, such as 0-10-10, which will induce more buds and flowers without a plant’s energy going into greening the foliage. Then, I also use a foliar fertilizer, such as Miracle-Gro because it’s so easy and inexpensive to use. This way plants and flowers are getting through their leaves and stems, as well as their roots.

I also try to be diligent about deadheading. Deadheading may be an ominous-sounding term, but all it involves is a benevolent form of pruning where spent flowers are removed from a plant. To me, deadheading ranks right up there with thinning as far as garden chores are concerned. Thinning involves picking off tiny green, immature fruits of apples, pears and other fruit trees. It’s tough to do because you know those tiny fruits might some day grow into large ones.

Deadheading is the same way because you’re sometimes snipping away flowers that may still be beautiful. Oh sure, often you’re cutting old, spent flowers, but sometimes you may be snipping still-good flowers. On a more tangible level, deadheading immediately improves the garden’s appearance by eliminating spent flowers. More importantly, deadheading extends annuals and other flowers past their normal blooming season. You’re fooling a plant into putting it’s energy into more flowers rather than allowing the flowers to go to seed.

Of course, there are many late-blooming, free-spirited annuals that will continue to bloom for a couple more months. Things like impatiens, marigolds, verbena, salvia, bachelor button, balsam, cleome and cosmos are great season extenders.

If you want to plant anew, go with tried and true fall/winter flowers. These range from the hardiest of all winter annuals – pansies – to their smaller counterpart, violas. They also include snapdragons, stock, calendula, Iceland poppy, primula (primrose) cyclamen and dianthus (sweet William). There’s also ornamental cabbage and kale, which offer huge plumes of purple that intensifies in colder weather. All of these are true winter annuals in that they continue to flower during the short, cold days of winter in our climate.

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