Southern Gardening - Potpourri for October

October, the month of falling leaves and cooler temperatures. Riding through the countryside, leaves are displaying beautiful colors ranging from reds, oranges, yellows, dark plum and gold. Many people take fall trips to different parts of the country to view the fall leaves. Some favorite tours include the states of Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York,Connecticut and Virginia. In the musical, The Sound Of Music, there is the song which mentions "the hills are alive with the sound of music", while our hills are alive with vibrant technicolor leaves. This month we celebrate Columbus Day on October 14th and Halloween on October 31st. I recently saw some statistics that in the United States, we spend more on Halloween than Christmas.

And what flower do we equate October with? Mums, mums, and more mums. I used to grow mums in my garden and had 2 areas: one which I allowed the mums to bloom at their natural time in the spring and the other area, where I had fall blooming mums. This contrast gardening only lasted one year. Just too much work to ensure fall blooms which intails disbudding the mums from spring, throughout the summer , and then finally letting them bloom for September and October. The biggest downside, besides the disbudding, was that particular area of the bed had no color for several months. Well, so much for my experiment.

With cooler nights, there are many spring to early summer flowers that enjoy a second life. Petunias, geraniums, pansies, and dianthus come to mind. I usually take up the dianthus before the summer heat spells their demise, put them in pots keeping them in the shade to have a reincarnation in the fall. I call them my born again flowers. Geraniums go through a similar routine, but usually I keep them in their original locations, most probably large pots. One needs to cut them back by at least one third, keep fertilizing and watering, and voila, more blooms in the fall.

PLANT OF THE MONTH: Dahlia (scientific name and family " Asteraceae" )

Dahlias are a genus of bushy, tuberous, herbaceous perennial plants known historically only to the Aztecs, thus native to Mexico and Central America. They were introduced into Europe after the Spanish conquest. This family includes sunflowers, daisies, chrysanthemums, and zinnias and are the national flower of Mexico. There are 49 species of dahlias in all heights and in almost every hue except blue. Today most Dahlias commonly grown as garden plants are hybrids. They are grown from tubers, and cuttings. Dahlias mostly thrive in areas of moderate temperatures, but there are plenty of hybrids that are heat tolerant. The plants which do well in the South include: semi-cactus 'Danum Meteor ', 'Bishop of Llandaff ', 'Bodacious', and 'April Dawn'.

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