Autumn Arrives with Fresh Air and Chores

“With autumn approaching, summer is nearly over, and that means that gardening correspondents all over the country are getting out the article they wrote this time last year and rephrasing it slightly,” opined Miles Kingston back in 1982. Sorry to disappoint you, Miles old bean, but despite suspicions from the editor what follows is as fresh as gardening can ever be. Some things, of course, never change; others mercifully go the way of the editorial blue pencil. ‘Twas ever thus and doubtlessly will remain so as long as we continue in our horticultural – and other – pursuits.

Diversion No. 1

Moss beats human: simple moss plants outperform us by gene number notes Science Daily. At the genetic level, mosses are more complex than humans. Scientists have now described 32,275 protein-encoding genes from the moss Physcomitrella patens. This is about 10,00 more genes than the human genome contains.

Ignore the garden at your peril. A pitiful refrain revolves around the observation that since everything will soon be dead, it can just be let go. On the contrary, a few minutes spent every day will assure weed-, pest- and disease-free garden in seasons to come. Pull out weeds, especially invasive grasses. Remove fungal-infected flowers and foliage. Keep a spray of natural insecticidal soap handy for treating aphid, whitefly and spider mite infestations. As fall rains arrive so will slugs, which may be attracted to small saucers of beer, into which they crawl and drown – presumably expiring in a state of bliss. Continue to remove dead blooms except for coneflowers, which will attract birds.

---

Diversion No. 2

Tall goldenrods aren’t sticking to what’s expected of plants: The gallflies that perch on their leaves are the ones being smelled, explains Johanna Rizzo in National Geographic magazine. Entomologists say its part of the larger arms race between plants and insects. In this case goldenrods are able to sniff out when a male fly – likely emitting mating messages – is around and produces toxins to deter egg laying.

“I thought they were artificial!” Maybe so, but stranger yet the plant called autumn crocus isn’t a crocus at all. And it blooms at this time of the year long after the foliage has died back in spring. But it does emerge from a corm, like a true crocus although it is correctly called Colchicum, after its place of origin, Colchis on the southern shores of the Black Sea. In its native habitat, the flowers of C. autumnale appear in shades of lilac-violet. Today, many cultivars are available in purples, pinks or white. There is even a double pink that goes somewhat inappropriately by the name of ‘Water Lily.’ Well worth planting, introduce some to marvelling visitors to your garden by a favourite Brit name, ‘naked ladies,’ earned thanks to its leafless nudity. Thus they, and you, are sure to remember it. You can also explain how, in days of old before the advent of safer, more modern treatments, both the corms and dried seeds were used to alleviate such painful conditions as gout.

Diversion No. 3

Britain’s biggest yew gets its annual trim – but the tonne of clippings takes two days to tidy up. The 40-foot, 300-year-old yew hedge sits on Bath Estate in the Cotswolds. The semi-circular planting is between 6-feet and 15-feet wide and stretches for 150 yards alongside the mansion of an aristocratic estate. It takes two men and a cherry picker a week to tidy up and costs £6,000 a year to maintain, writes the Daily Mail.

Bring any houseplants that have spent summer outdoors over summer inside towards the end of this month. But first apply a spray of insecticidal soap to discourage foliar freeloaders. An extra heavy watering will also flush out those concealed in the soil. Preparing for their overwintering sojourn indoors by cutting back the current summer’s growth of fuchsia, hibiscus and bougainvillea by three-quarters. Once indoors, all three attract pest infestations and should have an insecticidal soap spray repeated at biweekly intervals. Continue to fertilize all until the end of November then cease for all except those in bud or bloom. The aim is to induce dormancy through the gloomiest months of the year when growing conditions are at their poorest. Resume again for one and all the following March.

Diversion No. 4

The weather across Canada so far this year may appear extreme – from unprecedented floods in Alberta to the first-ever July without rain in Vancouver – but there’s no easy way to conclude what’s going on with our climate says Environment Canada senior climatologist David Phillips.

Yellowjackets wasps have plagued gardeners here since they arrived from Europe sometime in the 1920s. Then to greet the new century it was mosquito-borne West Nile virus. Now, the Sudbury and District Health Unit in Ontario says a blacklegged tick from the area has tested positive for the bacteria that can cause Lyme disease. The news arrived last month as a Boston meeting being held on the disease was warned that the number of Americans diagnosed with Lyme disease may by 10 times more than has been reported. Preliminary estimates released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that the number of Americans diagnosed with Lyme disease each year is around 300,000, reported Science Daily.