“Autumn in felted slippers shuffles on, muted yet fiery.”—Vita Sackville-West
There is an overwhelming bittersweet beauty in fall; a magnificent finale full of bright colors against blue skies until the fatal blow of a killing frost arrives. Some gardeners accept the cycle of the seasons. Some even rejoice, or are at least relieved with the end of the gardening year.
“Hurrah…it is a frost—the dahlias are dead.”—R.S. Surtees
“Who can endure a cabbage bed in October?”—Jane Austin
Other gardeners mourn the end of another year of cultivation and the loss of their place of refuge and beauty.
“A killing frost devastates the heart as well as the garden.”—Eleanor Peryeni
But before it is all over, we are cloaked in frantic color. Surrounded by flaming foliage in the trees are the late-flowering wild and cultivated perennials on the ground. The asters are the stars of autumn. The white wood aster, Aster divaricatus, is prominent in sun and shade, weaving a ribbon of wild edges through our gardens. They are not the showiest blooms, but the gentle abundance of the bluish-white petals softens the earth in autumn.
The taller wild asters, Aster nova-angliae and A. nova-belgii, are more colorful natives. (The Latin nomenclature refers to New England and New Belgium, which was an area in New York State.) Seeds were taken back to Europe by plant collectors who added the asters to their gardens. Because the blooms occur around the twenty ninth of September, which is the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels, asters have been renamed Michaelmas daisies by the Brits.
Aster nova-angliae is the taller of the two, growing up to six feet. If the plants are cut back by a third in late June or early July, a more compact, bushier, and more manageable member of the garden is produced. I always forget and have sprawling thugs who must be tied up to keep them in bounds. The wild New England asters along the roadsides are mostly purple with wide variability. Cultivars include ‘Harrington’s Pink,’ a white ‘Mount Everest,’ and a vivid cerise that should be grown for its welcome color and for the opportunity to speak her name, ‘Andenken an Alma Potschke.’
Aster nova-belgii has been used to breed many cultivars at a British nursery run by members of the Ballard family. Ernest, Patricia, Marie, and Ada all have asters bearing their names. Aster laevis ‘Bluebird’ is a mid-sized plant with caerulean blue blooms. ‘Purple dome,’ growing only eighteen inches tall with rich deep purple flowers, is a valuable addition to the front of a bed. A mass of purple aster flowers with orange maple leaves fallen on top and a clear blue sky behind captures New England autumnal beauty.
“Tastefully they bellow their presence while unruffling the ride of autumn well beyond the first frosts.”—Daniel Hinkley
Chrysanthemums were cultivated in China as far back as 500 B.C. I am fonder of single-flowered varieties such as ‘Sheffield Pink.’ If given plenty of space and moisture, these late-blooming mums will become so prolific that a gardener will have enough to share.
One of my favorite late flowers, Tricyrtis hirta, the oddly called toad lily, is a discrete
gem in the shade garden. My plants have flowers with six white petals covered with purple blotches and a prominent calyx protruding from the center. ‘Miyazaki,’ is whiter with smaller dots. These blooms are like miniature sculptures; the plants should be placed where they will be noticed and appreciated.
Autumn is the time for tall grasses and sedums to make a statement. Miscanthus sinensis send up silky plumes, or panicles, above strappy leaves. When an autumn breeze passes through, these grasses sway gracefully and produce a gentle, soothing susurration. Species with white and green variegation are particularly stunning, such as ‘Gracillimus’ and ‘Morning Light.’ A cousin, Miscanthus floridulus ‘Giganteus’ sends leaves and plumes up to nine feet. In the shade or the sun, the Japanese Hakonechloa macra in the cultivars ‘All Gold’ and ‘Aureola’ echo the golden foliage in the trees.
Sedum telephium ‘Autumn Joy’ is aptly named. While all summer its flattened heads are an attractive whitish green with hints of pink, it is now that the floral discs become rosy pink and gradually a brick-red. With their fleshy succulent leaves, sedums are well suited to drier areas.
Other treasures for the late garden include monkshood, Japanese anemones, turtlehead, and bugbane. The collection of cobalt blue cowls on a stem of Aconitum carmichaelii, the late-flowering monkshood, are clean and refreshing at a time when much in the garden looks tired and beat up. Anemone vitifolia and A. x hybrid, the Japanese fall anemones, also produce beautiful blooms in autumn. ‘Robustissima’ has single elegant pink flowers; ‘Honorine Jobert’ is a stainless white. There are two species of Chelone, the turtlehead flowers. C. glabra is a wild plant of wetlands with white tubular blooms resembling the heads of turtles, hence the name from the Greek chelone or tortoise. C. lyonia, named in honor of John Lyon, American botanist of the nineteenth century, is similar, with pink blooms. A cultivar, ‘Hot Lips,’ is even rosier. Cimicifuga simplex, the Kamchatka bugbane, sends up long, fragrant wands of small white stars whose perfume is a delight to humans and bees.
The garden in fall reminds us of its looming demise, but it does so with a blaze of glory and beauty until the bitter end.
“I trust the Garden was willing to die- I do not think that mine was- it perished with beautiful reluctance, like an evening star.”—Emily Dickinson in a letter to her Aunt Katie Sweetser, 18
October 2017
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