Terra's Garden
Monthly Column by Terra Hangen

“O sweet September, thy first breezes bring the dry leaf’s rustle and the squirrel’s laughter, the cool fresh air whence health and vigor spring and promise of exceeding joy here after.” (George Arnold, “September Days”)

September is a month to step back and create what you want to see in bloom in your garden next spring. Plant catalogs online and in print offer a bountiful selection of bulbs, plants, trees and shrubs to ship in August through October, so you can start dreaming of your spring garden and order plants now, for fall planting.

You can order from so many goodies that it can be overwhelming so I include here a few of my tried and true favorites: blueberries, butterfly bush, crape myrtle, tulips, peonies, lilacs, and iris that can be shipped in September.

For Iris, Schreiner’s Iris Gardens ships from July to mid-October. Their online catalog is at www.schreinersgardens.com and lets you search by categories like reblooming, dwarf, tall bearded iris, fragrant and more. For reblooming the yellow Again and Again, and Blue Suede Shoes are dependable. The Queen’s Circle tall bearded iris has won many awards, having a band of blue violet at the edge of white ruffled falls.

Order spring blooming bulbs in September, from companies like Park Seed (www.parkseed.com), John Scheepers (www.johnscheepers.com) and Dutch Bulbs (www.dutchbulbs.com). John Scheepers sells the Emperor Tulips in blazing red and in orange, the Tulip Carnaval de Nice which has red and white flowers, and Tulip Black Parrot, a dramatic accent flower. Dutch Bulbs offers a collection of 100 days of daffodils selected to bloom from February to May, for twenty dollars.

For a blueberry that is a handsome shrub, plant Blueberry Chandler, noted for yielding berries the size of cherries over a two month period. You need two blueberry bushes for pollination. Zones 4-9. Butterfly Bush is indeed a butterfly magnet, with flower clusters resembling lilacs, in color including yellow and blue. Buddleia Bicolor has amazing flowers of butterscotch and raspberry all summer, and is drought tolerant. Zones 5-9.

Crape Myrtle Red Rocket promises two seasons of fire engine red flowers, with new leaves being crimson turning to green in summer, and bright orange in fall, with the bush reaching 20 to 30 feet tall. Zones 6-9. Full sun and good drainage will promote the best flowering. For pink try Pink Velour and for white Natchez, both zones 6-10.

Peonies bloom in May and June and do well when planted in September. These beauties need a period of sustained winter chilling so plant in Zones 2-8. When placing in your garden plan that a peony will attain three feet in diameter. These plants are long lived, with documented life spans of fifty and even seventy years. Adelman Peonies at www.peonyparadise.com sells 150 different peonies, from Chocolate Soldier to the pink Angel Cheeks.

Another garden classic that does well when planted in September is lilacs. Not all lilacs are equally fragrant, with white sometimes not having much scent. Super fragrant varieties include Miss Kim (purple), Lilac Sunday (purple), and Henri Robert (lilac color). Zones 3-7. Most lilacs need a cold winter chill; Descanso hybrids are suited for mild-winter climates (Zones 8-9), with Blue Skies and Esther Straley (pink) being successful.

Genesis 2:15 in the Bible calls us to garden: “And the Lord God took man and put him in the Garden of Eden to do work in it and take care of it.”

This is a time to enjoy printed catalogs, and online catalogs, with the online catalogs being “green” because online buying eliminates paper and delivery of the catalog which requires the use of fuel to deliver it to your door. So dream and plan, shop online or locally when you can, and create a garden that is ever more beautiful each year.

About the Author: For more of Terra Hangen's garden tidbits, fun garden photos of her black squirrel friend, tips for beginning writers, and a glimpse into her own journey as a writer visit her blog at http://terragarden.blogspot.com. She is celebrating the publication of her first book, Scrapbook of Christmas Firsts, written with 6 Christian writer friends, and scheduled for publication Oct. 2008 by Leafwood Publishers.