Fall planting

On a smothering summer day a fat patch of annual red salvia can make you feel wretchedly hot. Take the same scene on a cool fall day and the salvia looks like a blessed bonfire. Funny how some annuals look their absolute best right now-like they've been to the spa and are back refreshed.

This is the time of year to drink in all the beauty of the garden. It changes rapidly everyday. There are more leaves down, more leaves turning colour. A sneaky frost turns the hostas to slime, but it also zaps a sumac so it glows like the inside of a blast furnace.

The theme of fall is colour and warmth. If you don't have it in your garden, go out and buy it, it's on sale now.

Scouting nurseries for deals is more relaxing than watching Ernie Els swing a golf club, and what you take away will give you pleasure for years. The prices are falling on perennials, shrubs and trees and will continue to do so in many garden centres through October. Hunch your way through the rows of plant material and notice the 60 per cent off tags. The selection is spotty but there are heroes in the seaweed to quote Leonard Cohen.

Imagine your garden graced with a Japanese maple. The red leaves can be as electric as that annual salvia. I saw good-looking 4-foot beauties in various nurseries for $60.00. If they are grown in containers as many are, they can relocate into the garden as long as you can dig the ground. But please mulch them with 5cm of coarse bark, and provide a "uniform" amount of water. Avoid planting Japanese maples in areas where they will be battered by drying, winter winds. These explicit directions are available in an excellent book, Japanese Maples by J.D Vertrees, published by Timber Press. If you are going to invest in one of the most beautiful trees for the garden, invest in the book too.

I am still haunted by a fernleaf European beech I saw for sale for $59 at Holland Park Garden Gallery.

"Buy it," said David Schmidt, Plant Propagator for the Royal Botanical Gardens. "It's a beautiful tree, and you don't see it very often."

The fernleaf beech Fagus sylvatica 'Asplenifolia' has exquisite cutleaf foliage and projects a delicate, fine textured form in the garden. The European beeches (Zones 5-7) are stately trees that adapt well to life in the garden. The fernleaf beech, while frothy as a cloud, will slowly grow into a sizeable specimen (45 to 50 feet). I really don't have room for it-but surely a discerning gardener will come along and give it a stylish home.

Next to the beeches were clusters of various evergreens, boxwoods for $14 and yews for $19. A very handsome pair of Hinoki cypress, Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Fernspray Gold' (Zone 5-9) beckoned at $29. These soft, shapely, false cypress were painted with gold and would warm up the winter landscape. David Schmidt warned that they don't like dry winds. "If they've been growing in a shade house, than you might need to give them some winter protection with burlap." The false cypress likes a moist, well-drained soil and full sun to part shade. Holland Park Nursery Manager Doris Prince said the woody plant material carries a one-year guarantee, and the guarantee comes with full planting instructions.

"It's a perfect time to plant the majority of trees and shrubs," says Frans Peters of Humber Nurseries. He would be careful though with plant material brought in from milder west coast climates, and its ability to acclimatize before freezing temperatures.

Humber has the facilities to over winter plants, so much of what they have now is top quality and likely not discounted. If it doesn't sell, it goes into the poly houses. So the idea of garden centres "unloading" plants doesn't apply across the board.

"There are for sure some good deals. And right now is the best time to shop for ornamental grasses, because you can see exactly what they'll look like. In the spring they're just sticks," Frans says.

Hydrangea mania continues in the gardening world, so I was happy to see a good selection on sale at nurseries. The peegee hydrangea Hydrangea paniculata (Zones 5-8) looks luscious in the garden right now, with its enormous flowers in tasteful pink. There is always a place in the garden to tuck in a hydrangea, but remember the peegee flowers on new wood, so do your pruning in late winter. The outstanding oakleaf hydrangea Hydrangea quercifolia (Zones 5-9) is better still, with grand flowers in June, spectacular fall colour now, and peeling, cinnamon coloured bark in the winter. In full sun to part shade, it looks perfect at the edge of a woodland or ravine. If you see it snap it up.

Rommy Lopat's WeedPatch.com provides more information on hydrangeas, and is full of informative, well-researched articles on plants you will love.

And finally, perennials. Ferns, hostas, heucheras, take your pick; they may not look their best, but if the root systems are healthy, plant on. But as Paul Zammit of Plant World (4000 Eglinton Avenue West, Etobicoke, ON; 416-241-9174) cautions, "Don't put your hose away, keep watering, right up through November. The worst thing for plants is to go into freezing temperatures without adequate moisture."

If you're picking up perennials, check the root ball Paul says, "If it's a mass of tight roots, tease them apart before planting."

It would make perfect sense to plant some species or small flowered tulips, crocus and scilla along with the heucheras, hostas, and daylilies. The emerging leaves of the perennials will cover up the ripening bulb foliage.

Yes the fall is ripe for sleuthing, scheming and planting. Do it soon while you can still feel the warm sun on your back.