by Jamie Walker | Photography by Allison Breiner Potter
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WBM october 2010
It’s the Time for Planting
The time to plan for the barren months is now. If spring
is the time for garden renewal, then fall is the time for garden
refurbishment. October is one big sigh, as the air and ground
cool off a bit and plant roots stretch out, claiming more garden
space and searching for the boost they need to give the coming
growth spurt all they’ve got. The ground is ripe and ready to be
worked, planted and tended to.
It’s the time for planting(!) say local garden shops, landscapers
and knowledgeable gardeners. But it’s also the time to pay attention
to the garden as it is, to decide how to extend and create
color sets, layer borders and beds, and perk up under-achieving
blooming trees and shrubs. It’s the time to divide clumps of
over-crowded perennials and bulbs and to apply compost or a
Color Keeping
the
f the Earth does indeed “laugh in flowers,” then laughter
abounds in Wilmington’s sandy southeastern soil. Open
coastal areas are canvases of red, orange and yellow blankets
of native gaillardia (Indian blanket), bluish bronze plumes of sea
oats and yellow flowering native cacti. Inland, native dogwoods,
magnolias, azaleas, columbine, beautyberry, goldenrod, muhly grass and
the endless range of both radiant and subtle blooming vines dress up
lush thickets of green in woodlands, wispy fields and stark roadways.
But there are always those few late summer months that can leave
even the natives looking a little peaked. And the frozen, nearly humorless
February soil sends shivers through tough but frosty camellia buds
destined to brown and drop. It is dreary garden days such as these that
leave the home gardener pining for the solace and reprieve that a little
color brings to an otherwise bleak landscape.
shrimp plant