Plants

Fall Gardening

As I write this, it’s the Fall of 1999. From listening to the teachings of other, more experienced growers, I have come up with the following list of things to do (and not do) in the Fall:

Do:

Seed, lime, and fertilize your lawn: You really want to do this by around mid-September in order to give the new seedlings time to establish themselves before the leaves from trees drop and plater over them. You will want to pick up the fallen leaves, particularly if you have seeded late.
Plant bulbs for Spring flowers: But watch out -- the deer and squirrels will find them and dig them up. To avoid squirrels digging them up, plant them later in the Fall, when the squirrels have become lazy.

Do NOT:

Prune back hedges and trees: In the Fall, plants have produced the buds that will form new growth in the Spring. Don’t cut off this new growth, or the plants will be severely stunted, and may not grow at all until late Summer. Furthermore, it is the leaves that tell the root system when it’s time to go dormant. If you remove leaves now, this signal is diminished, and you may prevent the plants from entering their dormant cycle. This can be damaging when Winter hits. It’s probably safe to prune after the ground has become hard and crunchy.
Fertilize (except for your lawn): Fertilizing now will promote a surge of new, tender growth. This new growth may not survive the frosts of November and December.

Be careful not to damage the root systems of perennials that were planted within the last year or so. They won’t be very established, yet, and are sensitive to damage.

It seems that the best time to prune back flowering plants may be in the Spring or Summer right after they have finished blooming. Flowering plants put all the energy they have into producing their fruit, so they’ll be in a state of recovery, rather than growth, at that time.

Resources on growing plants

Growing Luffas commercially

Vanilla Orchid Saga

Back in August of 1998, I had written:

I really want a Vanilla orchid. If anyone knows where I might find one, let me know. Thanks!

Update as of October 1999:

My friend Chris Daniel, who has spent the past couple years growing a number of different kinds of orchids, answered this desire by arranging for me to get an orchid, and then picking it up for me when I couldn’t make it to the show to which the seller had brought the plant.

The orchid has done reasonably well, until the drought hit this summer, and I failed in my duties of spraying it daily with pure rain water. It has since lost eight of its original fourteen leaves. And it hasn’t sprouted any new growth at all except for roots.

I have hope it will come vigorously back into health this Spring.

Update as of March 2000:

Around December or January, the remaining leaves had fallen off. All that was left was a withering stalk. I had almost given up hope. Then, Chris suggested I plant part of the vine in some well-drained soil. I did that, looping the vine through the soil twice so that two of the leaf joints that had roots growing from them are in the soil. Nothing much happened for a couple months.

Then, I went to Budapest for a week. When I came back on March 18, the stalk was full and green. Still no leaves, but the vine looks very healthy. Apparently, Mary took good care of it in my absence. Then, on the 22nd, I noticed a new sprout of growth! Hopefully, it will be a new leaf, or even a new shoot.

Update as of November 2004:

For the past couple summers, I’ve put the vine outside. The vanilla orchid really seems to like this. The main vine grew to around 8 or so feet last summer. Before the cold, I took it back in, of course. I don’t recall the circumstances exactly, but I ended up with a few segments of vine by the end of the winter.

This summer, I planted one very short segment in the ground, but left the main part of the plant in its pot, which I also placed outside. The long vine didn’t do so well this year; sections of it died off, leaving me with several short segments of vine by the time I took it in just before the first frost. The healthiest part of the plant is now a new shoot that sprouted from the base of the vine in the pot. That’s what’s left of the original section of the orchid, and it’s still the thickest part of the vine. None of the new growth is as thick as the original vine was when I got the plant.

So, for now, I have planted all the segments of the vine in three pots. Some have died already, but I’ll have several plants to plant outside in the spring.