September in San Lorenzo Valley Gardens
By Josh Reilly
Perhaps there should just be a September Garden Holiday. For the entire month. In September, we harvest whatever is left of our late Spring gardens. We thin and weed what we planted in August, short season leafy greens and brassicas, beets, turnips, leeks and carrots, for Fall harvest. Apples and stone fruits are becoming fully ripe and ready to eat off the tree. Or put up for Winter. If you haven’t thinned your apples, you still can (by now, however, they are thinning themselves by falling off the trees). Your squirrels and blue jays are no doubt helping too. Still, were you really going to eat all of them yourself? Anyway, plump squirrels feed the graceful raptors that soar above us in warm afternoon updrafts. Isn’t there a song in “The Lion King” about that?
If your roses are enjoying a second bloom, go ahead and deadhead them again. It keeps them tidy. Unless you want rose hips. If so, leave the blossoms in place, let them fade and fall, revealing shiny, dark red fruits in a few weeks. All manner of tart drinks, herbal teas and flavorings can be made from these little Vitamin-rich, red balls.
In September, you can prune herbaceous, woody Salvias, like “Hot Lips”, an alarmingly vigorous, prolific bloomer, covered until late July with its signature fire engine red and white blossoms. Like “Hot Lips”, other Salvias, such as the native S clevelandii, and S leucophylla, can be pruned in August after the end of the Summer bloom, but it’s not too late now. Some gardeners prune these large California natives back in August by as much as 90%, to fully renew the whole plant. Yikes! I prefer to use loppers or secateurs, cutting spent flowering shoots just above a healthy-looking leaf set, at least 3 or 4 leaf nodes down the shoot. This cannot be done in a hurry. There is a faster, less surgical approach, using hedge pruning shears. Your aim is to shape the plant and remove a given amount of plant matter. 50% is a perfectly reasonable amount. These plants will look a bit shocked, for a few weeks, however, they will leaf out again, refreshed and invigorated, blooming again, right up to the first frost.
September is peak season for lifting and dividing bulbs and rhizomatous perennials. I tend to divide bulbs every 3 to 5 years. This gives the bulbs and roots time to grow and produce offshoots big enough to withstand later dividing. Irises, daffodils, crocus and freesias should be lifted and divided in September and October. Shasta daisies, yarrow, perennial herbs, like thyme, and multiple cool season grasses, such as Fescue, Feather Reed Grass, Berkeley sedge, and Melica can all be divided now. Some of these reseed plentifully, so I rarely divide them, preferring to let them sprawl.
There’s still time to start Fall garden vegetables from seed, but not much. You might be better off planting seedlings, in 6 packs of cool-season greens like lettuce, arugula, chard, kale, as well as broccoli, cabbage, leeks, onion and garlic sets. It’s a bit late to start root crops, like beets, carrots, and turnips from seed. And it’s time to plant sweet peas for flowering next Spring. Place them where you have room for a trellis or a teepee, but you can wait until early Spring to install it.
As if that’s not enough, you can set out calendula, Iceland and Shirley poppies, pansies, stocks, violas, nemesia, alyssum, asters, sedum, agave, gaillardia, gloriosa daisy, and culinary herbs, including sage. oregano, dill, parsley, fennel, and rosemary.
And don’t forget hummingbird sage, Perovskia, phlomis, Eriogonum, Erigeron and Epilobium, Lampranthus, Oriental lilies and Gaillardia for perennial color next year, just to name a few. Bearded and CA native Pacific Coast hybrid iris, freesias, ranunculus, and watsonia should all go in now. Be advised, Watsonia is considered invasive in some locations.
Josh Reilly, aka Uncle Skip, writes about seasonal gardening from his home in beautiful Ben Lomond, California.
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