Garden Variety

In the Fall Assess, Plan & Plant

WRITTEN BY CAROLYN ALTMAN

As days get shorter and cooler, I want to curl up indoors with cookbooks and plan for Thanksgiving. Leaves falling from the maples and oaks around my home are a signal for me to begin nesting. The truth is, they’re a sign it’s time to get out in the garden and lay the groundwork for next year’s growing season.

Before digging out your jeans and flannel, stroll around your garden. Notice which plants did well and which did not. Celebrate successes, usually the result of the right amount of sun and good drainage. Try to figure out failures. Too much water? Not enough? Those are the most common reasons plants give up. A quick dig around a plant will tell you if the soil is too dry or not draining. If you squeeze a handful of soil and it clumps, it’s usually too wet. If it doesn’t hold together at all, too dry.

When leaves fall, they leave behind the skeletal structure of your garden. Study your structure the way an architect would. Do you have a good balance of heights, or do you have a lot of little things up against the tall walls of a house or fence? Do you have some good shade trees in locations that create a pleasing arrangement in relation to each other? I’m partial to the golden triangle, which places three elements either together or apart from each other to create a rhythm and dynamic tension. Other plants of various heights can fill in for texture and interest, and if you plant shrubs, you will ultimately have less weeding and maintenance work to do. Evergreens can help establish rhythm and form year-round, and punctuate grays and browns with living color in winter.

There are many ways to meet your design criteria. You might prefer formal hedges, or you might be like me, more of a rough and tumble nature lover. Either way, and many ways in between, fall is a good time to see what you have without the distractions of leaves and color.

Fall is also the best time to start a garden, or make changes in the one you have. A good garden starts from the ground up, literally. Rather than putting your leaves out to the curb, which is like putting dollar bills out to the street, mow them over with the lawnmower and spread them in your garden, covering them with a little soil as you go. Nature uses decayed leaves to build soil and you can too. You can do the same with compost. By the time you appear in your shorts with your spring seedlings in hand, living organisms will have converted leaves and compost into great, complex soil you could never buy in a bag.

Fall is also a great time to plant. From a plant’s point of view, fall is best. First of all, it’s not so hot, or at least it’s getting a little cooler, so the plant doesn’t have to work so hard transpiring water from its leaves to keep cool. As it loses its leaves and, like me, quiets into dormancy, the plant is also not working so hard to produce

food for itself from the sun. This means that the plant can focus on its roots. This is good news, because when it comes to plants, roots are where success begins.

While those of us above ground pay attention to leaves and flowers, roots are where major action happens. Yes, roots do keep a plant from falling over. They also take up water and nutrients from the soil, especially those in the top foot of soil within the dripline of the plant. They interact with fungi to improve nutrition. Trees even communicate with each other about drought, insect infestations and other issues by releasing chemical signals through their roots. When planted during the fall, a tree or shrub will invest in a root structure that will serve it well in many ways throughout its lifespan. You don’t have to do all of this in one weekend. Keep a journal of your successes, failures and dreams, so you can remember and build on them. Contemplate landscape structure over time, whether outside or from your favorite cozy window seat. Get your structure in place by planting trees and shrubs on the crisp sunny days that make late fall in Georgia wonderful. Then gather your gardening catalogues, stretch out on the couch, and begin planning for the first warm days of spring. S