Fall Scaping
by Nancy J. Ondra and Stephanie Cohen
This is a fantastic book. Although it’s a long book with over four hundred text pages in the electronic version, this book is crammed full of ways to methods in make a garden last into autumn and on through to the first frost.
The author explains that her basic method to maintain the garden into fall can be described in three steps:
(1) Use as your base summer-to-fall, long-blooming plants with good form and foliage,
(2) Add hardy bulbs and a few early perennials to cover the spring season, and
(3) Work in fall specific flowers and foliage.
Ms. Ondra classifies flowers and plants into these categories: fall flowers, longer blooming perennials, late summer bloomers, hardy bulbs, autumn annuals and tender perennials. She gives ample examples of these types of plants as well as tips about sowing or planting, location, trimming, and deadheading that will extend or delay the time of flowering or intensify bloom color. There is even a section on which plants you may want to refrain from trimming in fall to provide winter interest.
Other sections cover fabulous fall foliage plants, trees, and shrubs, and seed saving and display of seed heads, fruit, and berries.
The use of planters in fall are not forgotten. The book provides an abundance of information about shrubs and ground covers that can provide late season gardening interest in planters. The author also covers temporary protection for plants at the end of the gardening season and maintaining plants that like the warm soil and cool nights of the initial phase of autumn.
As well as providing the advice above, the book contains two additional benefits. It suggests various fall floral partner plants. Along with descriptions of these partner plants, there are diagrams for creation of various fall gardens using these plants. Secondly, there are numerous helpful directions on general plant care, tools, and gardening techniques throughout the book.
This book has given me a whole new outlook on fall and my garden. Fall Scaping’s incredibly thorough coverage and beautiful pictures will inspire you to consider the fall season as a marvelous extension and part of the gardening season rather than an end.
Holly Sparrow, Headwaters Master Gardener