The Promise and Beauty of a Late Autumn Garden
Read a landscape designer’s reflections on plants, wildlife, fatherhood and learning to let go at the end of the season
Today is the day. It’s a Saturday in late autumn, when the temperature spikes into the 50s or 60s, the sun is out and I still have 200 plugs to get into the ground before the soil freezes. I do this to myself every year: After scrambling to get clients’ gardens installed, I run out of time or steam to tweak my own landscape.
All photos show the author’s native garden in Lincoln, Nebraska.
I carefully organize the plants for these two to three warm days we get late in the season, planting the liatris corms and allium bulbs last because they don’t need as much time to root out as geranium, carex or dalea. If I can give the plants two to three weeks before the soil starts to cool with the air temperature, they will be ready to leap out in spring.
But boy, fall is going by fast. The stiff goldenrod (Oligoneuron rigidum) has poufy white seed heads, and the pale purple coneflower (Echinacea pallida) is a clump of jet-black balls atop wiry stems.
I carefully organize the plants for these two to three warm days we get late in the season, planting the liatris corms and allium bulbs last because they don’t need as much time to root out as geranium, carex or dalea. If I can give the plants two to three weeks before the soil starts to cool with the air temperature, they will be ready to leap out in spring.
But boy, fall is going by fast. The stiff goldenrod (Oligoneuron rigidum) has poufy white seed heads, and the pale purple coneflower (Echinacea pallida) is a clump of jet-black balls atop wiry stems.
The Joy of Autumn Gardening
What I love most about autumn planting is the days when every season seems present in one eight-hour stretch. Early in the morning I wear insulated gloves and three layers of shirts, and my pants get wet from the frost that’s formed on little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium). By lunchtime I’m down to one shirt; in midafternoon I’ve shed the gloves; come early evening darkness, I’ve slipped back into a jacket while I stack pots in the garage.
What I love most about autumn planting is the days when every season seems present in one eight-hour stretch. Early in the morning I wear insulated gloves and three layers of shirts, and my pants get wet from the frost that’s formed on little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium). By lunchtime I’m down to one shirt; in midafternoon I’ve shed the gloves; come early evening darkness, I’ve slipped back into a jacket while I stack pots in the garage.
Over the weeks, I’ve been counting the dwindling number of orb weaver spiders as I dig around our suburban lot, adding flowers to bare patches that naturally occur over time. (Even “low-maintenance” landscapes need TLC.)
Once there were more than a dozen female banded spiders in the back and front meadow beds, but now there is just one with the world’s smallest web — barely enough for her to hang on to — that must have taken all her remaining energy to weave near an aromatic aster (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium).
Every day I walk by her, saying hello, and know that when she finally dies during a 20-degree night, her egg sac will hold the same promise as the plants I’m placing into the warm soil now.
Once there were more than a dozen female banded spiders in the back and front meadow beds, but now there is just one with the world’s smallest web — barely enough for her to hang on to — that must have taken all her remaining energy to weave near an aromatic aster (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium).
Every day I walk by her, saying hello, and know that when she finally dies during a 20-degree night, her egg sac will hold the same promise as the plants I’m placing into the warm soil now.
Experiencing the Garden With Fresh Eyes
These weekend days are fleeting. My wife is home from work and can watch our toddler, whom I tend to for much of the week. He’s finally walking, and after lunch we bring him out to move through the grasses and flower seed heads still taller than him. He almost blends in with the maple and oak leaves piling up in the garden paths, and delights in their crunch underfoot before we rush to pull them from his eager mouth.
I think his discoveries are becoming my own: each moment something new, even though I’ve lived it before.
These weekend days are fleeting. My wife is home from work and can watch our toddler, whom I tend to for much of the week. He’s finally walking, and after lunch we bring him out to move through the grasses and flower seed heads still taller than him. He almost blends in with the maple and oak leaves piling up in the garden paths, and delights in their crunch underfoot before we rush to pull them from his eager mouth.
I think his discoveries are becoming my own: each moment something new, even though I’ve lived it before.
I don’t get as much planting done as I want. There were plant combinations I wanted to experiment with to see if they might work for future client designs, but that task doesn’t seem as important now.
After playing with my son, saying hello to the spider and spreading leaves into the beds to provide shelter for overwintering insects and bugs, I stop to admire the rainbow hues of the foliage of smooth aster (Symphyotrichum laeve), rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium), swamp milkweed (Asclepia incarnata), blazing star (Liatris spp.) and Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans). Who says only trees have fall color?
After playing with my son, saying hello to the spider and spreading leaves into the beds to provide shelter for overwintering insects and bugs, I stop to admire the rainbow hues of the foliage of smooth aster (Symphyotrichum laeve), rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium), swamp milkweed (Asclepia incarnata), blazing star (Liatris spp.) and Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans). Who says only trees have fall color?
Letting Go of Uncertainty
This time outside brings all my doubts to the surface: Do I play with my child enough? Will that garden we installed perform next year how I’m envisioning? Is our suburban landscape doing as much as it can for the environment and wildlife?
Without these doubts, I wouldn’t seek to learn more or fail in better ways; without these last autumn days, when the low sun perfectly backlights the plants, I wouldn’t know the full glory and promise of being a gardener. We can do only our best in this life — in planting, in parenting and in helping others bring wildness home to their lives. Luckily, we do it often enough.
This time outside brings all my doubts to the surface: Do I play with my child enough? Will that garden we installed perform next year how I’m envisioning? Is our suburban landscape doing as much as it can for the environment and wildlife?
Without these doubts, I wouldn’t seek to learn more or fail in better ways; without these last autumn days, when the low sun perfectly backlights the plants, I wouldn’t know the full glory and promise of being a gardener. We can do only our best in this life — in planting, in parenting and in helping others bring wildness home to their lives. Luckily, we do it often enough.
As the sun sets and clouds blaze from orange to pink and purple, I let the hope go that I’ll get everything I want into the ground. Sometimes falling short is sweet and gives me more to plan over winter, so I’ll be ready to leap into action come April, just like the butterflies will be. I place the last two trays of liatris and allium along the east side of the house, cover them in a blanket of insulating leaves and exhale into the chilling November twilight. No garden is ever done, and that’s how we gardeners like it.
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Kim Kenney, Allied ASID