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North Mississippi Gardening Tips
September, 2002

Notes for September

Even dedicated gardeners like myself can't help but be a little fizzled out by this time of year. I can say with complete candor I actually look forward to the first killing frost that rids my garden of the burned-up, bug-eaten sorry remains of my summer annuals. But I also look forward to the beginning of fall and the wealth of opportunities we have in the fall garden of north Mississippi.

Late Bloomers for Fall

Summer flowering annuals and perennials usually have hit rock bottom by now. The reasons are many, but the effect is the same: Downright pitiful! Not so with perennial salvias. Fall is when many of them come into full-blown glory, with spiky flowers of blue, purple, and red so eye-popping that you would swear they were plugged into something.

Mexican bush sage is a fall flowering salvia. It produces scads of purple flowers from late summer to the first frost atop 3 to 4 foot plants. They can get as tall as they are wide, so leave room for them to grow. These are one of my all-time favorite plants-carefree, drought and heat tolerant, big and showy. The downside of this picture is they are not reliably winter hardy in the northernmost counties-no matter-as this plant can get big enough to hide a small pony by fall if you set out a plant in a four inch pot in May. Some other good late summer and fall blooming salvias to try are: S. guarantica, S. uglinosa, and S. greggi.

Sow Wildflower Seeds in the Fall

Most wildflowers, especially spring and early summer bloomers should be sown this month through November. Sown at this time they benefit from fall rains and cold winter soils and often grown stronger and bloom better than those sown in the late winter or early spring. For best results, it is generally more satisfactory to sow single species of wildflowers adapted to an area, or mix several recommended ones together for a specific effect. Wildflower seeds are available from the USDA/NRCS (National Resources Conservation Services) in Jackson. Tel. 601-965-5196. For more information on wildflowers contact your local Extension office and ask for publication number 1709 "Wildflowers for Mississippi Meadows and Gardens."

Fall Vegetables

If you were an industrious and farsighted gardener who didn't hibernate in front of the A/C during July and August, but spent your time setting out or seeding fall yielding lettuce, cabbage, carrots, radishes or mustard, you are beginning to enjoy or soon will the fruits of your labor. Don't forget that these plants need fertilizing and watering just like those planted in the spring to continue to produce and grow well.

Late Summer and Fall Fruits

It's the beginning of apple time in north Mississippi! Whether you grow your own or visit the u-pick orchards there's nothing like sinking your teeth in a crisp, plump apple you plucked from the tree yourself. Besides apples, pears continue to ripen into late September. If you're quick and smart you can harvest them from the tree before they fall and those nasty little yellow jackets get on them. If you jump the gun and pick a few not quite ripe, just wrap them individually in newspaper and put in a cool place to ripen further (not in the refrigerator). Wild and "tame" or cultivated muscadines are also ripening now. If you don't grow your own or don't want to forage through the woods for the wild ones, visit your local farmer's market to find our native grape.

Do not prune or fertilize any fruits this month. Be careful when mowing around fruit trees. Any damage to the bark by a mower or string-trimmer can provide an entrance for borers, especially in early September when the adult moth is laying her eggs.

A Bloomin' Rule of Thumb for Perennials

With few exceptions, fall-bloomers should be divided in the spring, spring bloomers just after they bloom and summer bloomers in the fall. If you adhere to this rule, a list of those plants to divide now would include daylilies, canna, hosta, liatris, monarda, purple coneflower and verbena.

Fascinating Facts about Oak Trees

If you're fascinated by factoids you might get a bang out of the following information. The average oak lives to be about 450 years old. The granddaddy of oaks is the Eastern white oak, which can survive 800 years. Its wood, hard and impermeable to water, was once carved into wooden nutmegs and pumpkin seeds and sold as the real McCoy to the gullible by Yankee peddlers. As we move into fall and those acorns start falling and popping you in the head during those otherwise quiet and tranquil walks in the woods, you should ponder this: oaks, after around 10 years of growth, produce 5000 acorns annually, with a bumper crop every 3 to 4 years. In view of that number, why in tar-nation are there not more oak trees? One study tracked the fates of some 15,000 acorns produced by one prolific tree. Eighty-three percent were gobbled by varmints; six percent were attacked by insects; about 10 percent were imperfect. Less than 1 percent actually sprouted, and half of those died as seedlings! Mercy me, I know gardeners have to be optimistic, but I think I would give up the ghost if only one-half of one percent was a typical survival rate of the seeds produced by my favored garden and landscape plants!

Lelia Scott Kelly, Ph.D., writes North Mississippi Gardening Tips monthly and is a Horticulture Specialist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service. Her office is in the North Mississippi Research & Extension Center, Verona.