Earlier this month, before the rain and cooler temperatures arrived, as I planted autumn containers for the patio, it seemed more like spring than fall. The sun's heat was almost of midsummer intensity. Some of the roses were putting on exuberant amounts of new growth. Fat lettuces sparkled in the food garden. Fall was so very much nicer than the spring this year. Perhaps early autumns that are warm and dry will become the norm, along with the extra-fiery fall colours that follow such fine weather.
Patio pots. On one of my merry meanderings through local garden centres I spotted a display of small, tidy flowering kale plants. I bought two white and two red, and a small flat of violet and yellow bicoloured violas as filler flowers. The plants fitted nicely into a 38-centimetre-wide patio pot that had been emptied of weary looking summer petunias.
I'm fond of frilly flowering kale for fall and winter colour, and a few leaves plucked from the plants now and then add colour, nutrition and an added texture to salads.
Another display that caught my attention early in the month was a table of "Bud Bloomer" heathers. These are heathers whose brightly coloured flower buds never open, never get pollinated and remain colourful for many months.
Bud bloomers are ideal for fall and winter containers, not only for the long decorative display but also because at that time bees are not active and needing food, supplied in abundance by the usual flowering heathers.
I fitted three small, neat bud-blooming heathers - one red, one pink and one white against lime-green foliage - into a matching patio pot, and added a few pansy plants with dark blue flowers.
Both patio pots have given colour and pleasure for weeks now, and I anticipate the show to go on for some time. As the weather becomes cold I'll bring the pots closer to the house, for protection and for up-close appreciation through the glass doors from the family room.
Sweet alyssum. In the past few years I've been revisiting the many charms of sweet alyssum, and discovering some of its new faces.
Every spring I keep a few of the self-sown, old-fashioned white alyssum plants as they appear around the edges of food garden plots, where they expand into billowing masses of bloom exuding an intoxicating, honey-like fragrance in the summer sun. These plants are extremely valuable additions to gardens. They are one of the very best food sources for beneficial insects, our gardening allies as they prey on garden pests.
A couple years ago I found listed in the catalogue from Chiltern Seeds a colour selection from the Easter Bonnet Series. I chose to grow Easter Bonnet Violet because the flowers were described as a rich, deep violet and also because this variety had earned both European Fleu-roselect and Royal Horticultural Society awards. Easter Bonnet Violet transplants are available in some local garden centres in the spring.
I was astounded to find that my Easter Bonnet Violet plantings, in both pots and the open garden, overwintered in perfect condition, to give another spring through early fall season of fragrant bloom.
I routinely pull up all the old white alyssum plants, which become stretched out and blowsy, and leave selected volunteer plants. But the overwintered Easter Bonnet Violet plants stayed low, compact, and neat, like a ground-hugging evergreen perennial. Perhaps, in a colder winter, this sweet feat would not be repeated, Still, I'm impressed.
This year, I was charmed also by an alyssum called Rally Formula Mixture, which I found in the Alberta Nurseries and Seeds catalogue (gardenersweb.ca). In an elevated, shallow bowl-shaped planter, its white and light lavender flowers took on a delightfully lacy, almost antique appearance.
In a similar planter, a Clear Crystal Mixture continues to create a beautiful display of lavender, white, and purple flowers on the patio. The Clear Crystal Series is known for its vigour and tolerance to both heat and cold. These alyssums are listed in the catalogues from Stokes and Veseys.
I'm looking forward to continuing on the fragrant alyssum path next year. I have an eye on a variety called Aphrodite. Chiltern Seeds lists an Aphrodite mixture which, in their 2012 catalogue, is described as a "splendid new variety ... with a compact habit and uniformity combined with a happy spreading form." Its sweetly scented flowers come in "a unique range of colours from the traditional whites and pinks to unexpected salmons, biscuits and lemons."
Sounds like lunch! Alberta Nurseries lists Aphrodite Purple, which they describe as an "extra compact" sweet alyssum in a "gorgeous royal purple."
