Ask a Master Gardener: Gardeners’ Delight: Fall Is for Planting

Baptista by Mary Townsley

By: Mary Townsley, Mobile County Master Gardener, www.mobilecountymastergardeners.org 

Fall is upon us: days are a bit shorter, and the humidity is thankfully abating. Is fall a good time to plant, you ask? Absolutely yes! 

Many of you may have had the pleasure of wandering through the terrific selection of plants and trees at the Mobile Botanical Gardens Fall Plant Sale.  This collection is carefully curated to provide the best for our planting zone and most appreciate fall planting to give their roots time to settle in before winter dormancy arrives. 

Hopefully, you brought a good number home, which are now lining your driveway or patio waiting for you to find them permanent homes in the garden. What now? Take a break and do some reading and planning before you dig holes. Use the plant labels to start your research on your new plants. Learn how big they will get at maturity, their tolerance or preference for full sun or shade, and watering needs. Consider your potential planting sites: full sun or deep shade, dry or consistently damp, access to water source, distance from existing structures, etc. These details will help you site the plants properly.

High canopy, understory and ornamental trees were in abundance! The Japanese maples called to me. Summer Gold, a yellow-leafed cultivar, will find a home in a location with afternoon shade. Germaine's Gyration, a green lace-leafed cultivar, will be planted on the curve of the driveway that gets a bit more sun. Both are slow growing, so this planting is an investment in future spectacular leaf shows.

Fruit trees and plants were also in abundance. This is a good time to plant blueberries, for example. If you picked up several varieties of rabbit-eye blueberries and get them established before winter, you will be on your way to picking an annual crop. Purchasing good quality, USDA-certified citrus trees while they are available is another great idea; you may have found some at the fall sale. However, unlike most trees, citrus trees are best planted in the spring as most have some susceptibility to cold-induced damage.

There is still time to plant in your vegetable garden, focusing on cool weather crops. The Gardens had a nice selection of these, including collards, broccoli, Swiss chard and kale. Planting these now will give you access to culinary greens at least until the first frost. Herbs are always a welcome addition too, both for your home cook and for local pollinators. Plant that upright rosemary Salvia rosmarinus in full sun with adequate space to grow. You will enjoy its fragrance and spring/early summer blooms. 

My pollinator garden has some well-established perennial shrubs including Hamelia patens (firebush) and Caryopteris (aka bluebeard), as well as thryallis and Porterweed, which provide blooms from June until frost. Porterweed is billed as an annual, but these plants have returned for several years after winter die-back in my zone 9a garden.  So, this garden space has some good bones, but it also has holes... Two native perennials from the sale will help fill in nicely.  Rudbeckia maxima, giant coneflower, will be planted to the back of this bed. This coneflower will reach 5-7 feet tall and should self-sow.  Clumps of Baptista, which should only reach 3 feet or so in height, will fill in the front of the bed with spikes of yellow blooms.  Holes filled, done!!

If you did not make it to the sale, fear not! You can take this opportunity without planting chores to take stock of your existing plantings and plan for spring. Or you can dream of fall planting after next year's fall sale!

Rudbeckia maxima BY peganum CC BY-SA 4.0

Upright rosemary by Mary Townsley

Firebush and bluebeard in a pollinator garden by Mary Townsley