This is a great time of the year to get bargain prices on plants. Though the ground in many areas is still able to be dug to enable one to plant, few people seem to realize that one can still plant perennials, bulbs, shrubs and trees. In fact, this is a great time to plant. Besides saving money on plants from nurseries that desperately want to get rid of stock, by planting in the Fall, you are giving your perennials, shrubs, trees and bulbs a head start in root growth. And bulbs need to go in at this time of year so they get that cold snap that produces flowers in the spring.
TheGardenLady has constantly recommended that readers shop for plants at Russell Gardens Wholesale both for their great plants and their great prices.
Sadly, this is to inform readers that the man who started this business has passed away. There will be a memorial for H. Clifton Russell this Sat. To read the obituary and to see the time of the memorial service check out today’s Philadelphia Inquirer.
York Restoration Corporation Building Restoration Local Nursery by York Restorations
TheGardenLady feels sorry for plant nurseries in this heat and drought. Not only do they have to do frequent watering, but TheGardenLady can’t imagine many people buying right now. So the nurseries are putting their plants on sale and some prices are almost so low that it seems like the nurseries are giving away the plants or just barely covering costs. Russell Gardens Wholesale has some perennial and herb plants on sale for $1. So you can pick up some bargains.
But buyer beware!
Another reason for these sales is that gardeners know that one should avoid planting in hot, dry weather, because this weather can easily stress plants. If you must plant in summer, plant in the cool of the morning.
And unless you have enough water to give to your plants, you will have a lowered success rate of the plants surviving. All new plants, that includes trees and shrubs, like to be watered well the first year to get their root system established. Even the drought-tolerant plants need to be watered well when first planted to establish their roots.
Proper watering becomes the most important part of plant survival because transplanting causes a certain amount of shock to a plant due to the loss of roots, transportation and handling, and a change in growing conditions. So don’t think that if you have a landscaper do the work of planting for you, that your plants will survive without your watering adequately. See here.
And when shopping for plants at this time of year, again buyer beware. It is always advisable to shop at reputable nurseries where they know their plants, can give you advice on proper care of the plant and who know how to care for the plant in their nursery. Most places get fresh plants at the beginning of the summer, but if the plant has been in the nursery for a long time, it had to be properly cared for at the nursery before you buy it. Good nurseries know what they are doing. Some of the chains hire people who don’t know how to care for the plants. A good nursery will have watered its plants properly and shouldn’t sell you something that won’t live out the week.
When you buy the plant and bring it home, since the plant has been sitting in a small pot for the summer season, at this time of the year it is probably root bound. To get the plant out of the pot, you may have to cut some of the roots off that have grown out of the holes and you may even have to cut the pot off the plant.
Sometimes soaking the plant for an hour will help get the roots more able to absorb water. And then you will probably have to make cuts in the roots – this is called root pruning – so that they will grow outward when put the plant in the ground. This cutting will help to free the roots. See here.
Thanksgiving - Action de grâce by cyanne43 super slow speed
On Thanksgiving Day, this GardenLady likes to not only enjoy the feast with family and friends, but she likes to think of the day as a day of giving thanks, of sitting around the dinner table and sharing with family and friends the things that are meaningful for which each person is grateful.
Asticou Azalea Garden with Buzz and Orton by jblester2002
TheGardenLady wants to share with her readers as if each one of you is sitting at her table and to tell you all that she is so very grateful and give thanks for all the wonderful public and private gardens, arboretums and public parks that are open for her and the public to visit and enjoy. She is grateful for the vision people had to create these magnificent gardens and to keep these places and open these places for everyone to enjoy.
Mt. Cuba Fall 2009 by rwa757
How wonderful it was/is that people of wealth created such beautiful places and now allow everyone to share in their creations. For example, in Deleware who wouldn’t thank the Duponts for making so many beautiful gardens available to us to tour, gardens like Mt. Cuba and Longwood Gardens. Or in Maine, a big thank you to the Rockefellers who have supported gardens in places like Mt. Desert Island for visitors to enjoy, gardens like the Asticou Azalea Garden or Thuya Gardens and if you can get an appointment on the right day, to visit the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden. I had the great pleasure of visiting all three this summer. Or places abroad that open gardens for visitors, like the National Trust for Gardens and Parks (see here).
Thuya Garden by prettie77
And how wonderful that even people of modest means who create private gardens often open their gardens thanks to garden club tours or the Garden Conservancy that started in 1995 and opens to the public what they call the ” best private gardens” (see here) for people to visit; or the garden conservancy in England that has open day garden visits.
I am grateful for all the wonderful Botanic Gardens or Arboretums in this country and around the world: Places like the US Botanic Gardens; the National Arboretum in Washington, DCÂ ; Garvan Woodland Gardens in Arkansas; the Orto botanico di Palermo in Sicily, Italy; or Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam.
Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam by billandkent
And I am grateful for the wonderful gardens at colleges and universities that are open to the public, gardens like those at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania; Princeton University’s magnificent arboretum and gardens in Princeton, NJ; Wellesley College gardens in Wellesley, Mass. and Berkeley’s Botanical Garden in Berkeley, California to name just a few.
Berkeley Botanical Garden Pond F1280 by CoastRanger
And I am grateful for politicians or wives of politicians who had or have the foresight to create gardens. A loving thank you to Lady Bird Johnson who did so much to promote wildflowers in her state and around the country and who created The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Texas.  See here.
lady bird johnson wildflower center by TexasValerie
And a heartfelt thanks to Mayor Daley of Chicago who encourages plantings and gardens all over that city. He has an annual program called Mayor Daley’s Landscape Awards that recognizes Chicago gardeners, both resident and businesses, who make Chicago greener by planting gardens. All cities and towns should have these Awards- and many do, like Cape May, NJ that give awards for gardens.
1999 Mayor Daley’s Landscape Award – First Place, Single Family Residential, Region
And I am grateful that so many nurseries now have show gardens that are a delight to see, nurseries like Russell Gardens Wholesale with their hosta garden or Matterhorn Nursery in New York (see here) that has wonderful show gardens like their Formal Garden that is based on the Renaissance Garden at David Austin Roses in the United Kingdom or Cricket Hill Garden in Connecticut that has a seven acres terraced woodland garden they call Peony Heaven.
David Austin Roses Visit, June 09 by www.cherrymenlove.com
I am grateful for all those professional gardeners, landscapers and garden workers as well as all the volunteers who help in so many public or private gardens or even create their own gardens for people to see and visit. Professionals and volunteers help plant gardens, care for gardens, save and protect old gardens. There are the wonderful projects for volunteers like Garden Your City or The Trust for Public Land or Master Gardeners who have shown gardens in the US, Canada and now starting in New Zealand and England and there are even people who love plants who have adopted a small island on the street in front of their homes and planted them with flowers.
I can not thank everyone on this short post. But to all of you mentioned above and all of you whom I had no space or time to mention, on this Thanksgiving, TheGardenLady wants you to know how much I appreciate what you have done for me and how much more beautiful and healthier a world you have helped to create and what a wonderful, joyous environment you have made for all of us. There are not enough words in my vocabulary to express how much you and your plantings have done for me. I cannot thank you all enough what what you have given me. And so this post of Thanksgiving is for you. A simple Thank you will have to suffice.
The GardenLady just returned home from another buying spree of perennials and shrubs. This is TheGardenLady’s favorite time to buy plants. At Russell Gardens Wholesale, I got the Jackmanii Clematis that I wanted to plant next to my new arbor. I also bought 9 good sized hosta plants plus 6 other perennial plants. The price for everything came to just a little over $50. I couldn’t fit another plant in the car. Today I bought the Buddleia davidii Pink Delight that I decided I needed when I saw the wonderful long pink spikes it has. This buddleia looked magnificent in the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden. I bought it in a gallon pot at half price.
When you are driving around this fall, I hope the readers of this blog notice the huge signs at most nurseries that say SALE. And like TheGardenLady, I do hope that you are taking advantage of these sales. Unless you are shopping for a new plant that is being featured in the spring or you are looking for a plant that absolutely must be planted in the spring, FALL is the time of the year to buy and plant your garden. Why? Because this is the time of year that nurseries and gardens are having sales. The nurseries want to get rid of inventory so that they don’t have to keep all those plants in pots over the winter. And they want to make room for new plants that will be coming to them in the spring. And it is not just nurseries that are having the sales, plant catalogs and websites are having their sales. So you, the gardener will reap the benefit of these sales. Fall is a buyers market for perennial plants, shrubs and trees.
