How's Your Garden

BY LOIS TRIGG CHAPLIN

Fast-Growing, Cool-Weather Harvests

Cilantro

There is still time to plant cilantro, radishes and scallions for harvests this fall and winter. These three items are best and most economical when you can pluck just the amount needed fresh from the garden. Fall is the best season for cilantro because it doesn’t bolt until spring. Onion transplants sold now are long day, so they won’t make bulbs but instead are perfect for scallions all winter. Bonnie Plants offers cilantro transplants and onion bunches in the fall. Popular small round, red radishes such as Cherry Belle mature in only a month and will hold in the ground for a while. Start those by sowing a few seeds in the garden each week this month so that they mature in succession.

An Aster That Climbs!

There are so many aster and aster relatives that they can be hard to keep straight. “It’s one of those aster things” is what my garden circle usually says until we get a proper ID. But the climbing aster (Ampelaster carolinianus) is easy to distinguish. It’s one of the few that makes a vine. The plants have sparse, woody stems that grow 8 to 12 feet long, but when pruned it turns into a sprawling shrub. It can be trained either way. This is a native aster that blooms very late. At our house, the blooms seem to survive the first frosts in fall, too, usually staying in bloom into December. Because it blooms so late, it is especially valuable in gardens for nectar and pollen for pollinators late in the season. Some of the bees that visit include sweat, leafcutter, bumble and mining bees. Butterflies that visit the flowers include sulphurs, buckeyes, swallowtails, fritillaries, common buckeyes and others. Try climbing aster on a fence, let it drape over a wall, or prune it and let it mound upon itself as a sprawling shrub. It’s a great garden addition anywhere you have full sun and decent drainage, although it will tolerate the kind of standing water that drains off in a day or two after a deluge.

Climbing aster

Fast, but Not Furious Confederate Rose

The close of warm-season blooms is marked by Confederate rose. A giant perennial in most of the state, Confederate rose bursts from the ground in spring, easily growing 8 feet tall or more, but makes us wait all summer for its giant carnationlike blooms. The fascination of this plant is how the blooms tell their age, starting out white then turning pale pink to deeper pink as they age. Not really a rose but a mallow (Hibiscus mutabilis), Confederate rose also goes by the name cotton rose because the leaves look like those of the cotton plant and the seeds look like a cotton boll. Frost ends its flowering season, so along the coast it stays in bloom longer than in North Alabama. This is the ultimate passalong plant, as it is very easy to start from cuttings rooted in water, but not as easy to find for sale at most garden centers. The easiest way to get one is to ask a friend or neighbor for a piece before freezing weather. Take stem cuttings about a foot long from a large diameter stalk and just stick the cutting in a quart jar of water in a sunny window. In a couple of months when they have made roots and probably a few leaves, pot them in soil and keep them indoors in a sunny spot. After the last frost in spring, your plant will be ready for a sunny spot in the garden where it is sure to be a show-stopping way to end the season.

Confederate Rose

Mulch and Soil Certification Helps

Good garden mulches and soils are sophisticated blends of natural forest products, other organic materials such as peat moss and special additives such as lime. They can be varied and complex in order to meet the specific needs of gardeners: for example, a sandy cactus soil, a bark orchid soil or organic garden soil for raised beds. However, it is impossible to distinguish a good product from a bad one just by its appearance. If you’ve ever bought potting soil that ended up like a brick in the pot, you know. One way to buy is to choose a product certified by the Mulch & Soil Council (MSC). MSC Certification is a major step in any manufacturer’s customer assurance that its product label is truthful, accurate and that product claims have been verified to conform to certain quality guidelines which include proper labeling, lab testing, greenhouse growth testing and chemical testing for CCA-treated wood contaminants in mulches. Label claims on packaged products are reviewed and verified by generally accepted industry criteria or independent research testing. Products must pass stringent screening at the time of application and are subject to random field testing directly from the marketplace. To purchase an MSC-certified product, look for the MSC logo and certification label on the bag. A list of certified brands of potting soil, garden soils and mulches is available at https://www.mulchandsoilcouncil.org/ certification.php.

Soil