Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: October perennial care
Yowza, it’s October 1st and time for some October to-do’s in the garden.
The seeds of rudbeckia and coneflower are ready to be collected if they’re dried!
Cut the heads off in the afternoon when the plant is dry, open the flower head and collect the seeds. You can store them in a dry area in jars or envelopes. Make sure you mark them or it really will be a surprise!
Sometimes you’ll get the exact same flower, other times, even if you label them, it’s a surprise. That’s part of the fun! You can see I mixed mine up!
What kind of look you want for your winter garden? What I call the “Mr. Clean” look with no ‘dead stuff’ left standing or the “Lazy Susan”, which is a misnomer and not just because this is my method!
I like to leave many of my ‘dead’ perennials standing for winter interest. AND, there’s good reason to leave your natives up to feed the birds! I just saw a Yellow finch enjoying my native coneflowers seeds.
Many types of birds enjoy the seeds of various perennials, AND, Salvia and hardy mums actually seem to overwinter better when the dead stems are left standing.
Grasses are outstanding from Autumn through winter. Then in spring, when they’re cut back, I store them until it’s time to use them as mulch for my vegetable garden.
One caution, remove any diseased or bug ridden parts! If your garden suffered from fungal disease, get rid of the plants and clean up the area!
If there are topics of interest that I haven’t covered, please send me an email at tkgardenbite@gmail.com or send me a message on my Garden Bite facebook page!!