Fall Colors II: Mums Glow with Light from Within

Nothing says fall like asters and mums. For years I have looked at the gorgeous asters at our favorite garden center, and passed on getting them because, well, everyone knows they are hard to grow, they get the yellows, our soil is bad for them, etc. But this year I finally coughed up $5 on the first day of October and brought this specimen home.

Norm repotted it and placed it at the corner of the front wall in the midst of our luxuriant (and still growing, nearly 4 weeks later) sweet potato vine. Yes, that is one vine, and it's in a pot. It drinks like a sailor, though--we had to water it every day, sometimes twice a day, in the hot summer weather. One thing about a sweet potato vine, you don't have to guess when it's thirsty.

After two glorious weeks, the aster had bloomed itself out, so it is now retired and resting out back until we can find a spot to plant it. We rotated this bronze mum into its spot about a week ago and it is still going strong. So is the sweet potato vine. Our plan is to see what kind of tuber it has produced and if it looks healthy, we will keep it in the basement this winter and plant it again next spring. We did that a couple of years ago with another prolific vine. The mum will get planted in the flower bed in the wall, probably. Sometimes they survive the winter and sometimes they don't.

This is another bronze mum that has survived for about three years now. We planted it next to the front porch steps and I think this is its best year since we did that. I didn't pinch this one back this year because it stayed compact, and it also didn't set buds until sometime in August.I love these flowers because they seem to glow, even on a cloudy day!

Another hardy returning mum is this red one...I think it is an unusual red because most "reds" I see are really burgundy. this one occupies the far end of the wall next to Mr. Guy's property. For a while this spring I wasn't sure it had survived (this is its third year) but then some foliage poked through the mulch. This is such a vibrant color.

This white mum that looks like it is trying to pretend it's a Shasta daisy is actually one of two plants that we divided in their second year because they were overgrowing everything else planted on the wall. They bloom really early. They were keeping the aster company back at the end of September and early October. They are completely finished now, but they were our first harbinger of fall.

These pink mums hold the volunteer record...I think they have been out back under the lilac since at least 2006, maybe earlier. They spread out more every year; this is just one cluster of the entire sprawling group. Usually I pinch them back severely, but we were gone in June when I should have done it, and July was so hot they grew slowly. After the first fall wind, though, they really flopped over. This was a semi cloudy day with the sun wanly showing, and they still glowed. I can see them from the kitchen window and they are so cheery. They will persist until frost.

These sunny yellow flowers occupy the "welcome" spot beside our front porch steps and when they fade, they will get planted near the front door or in the wall as well. They were the third new plant I bought this fall.

Leaves are starting to fall from the oak, the maple, and all of the neighbors' trees as well, which makes it hard to keep the flowers visible, but we give it a try anyway. Soon enough the leaves will be raked, the plants will be heeled in to the ground for winter, the bird feeders will be up, and I'll be looking for where I packed my longjohns. Today it got to 75 degrees. Tonight we had thunder and the first rain in over a month...we got about an inch or more in less than an hour. Now there's a small stream flood advisory for North County. As my dad would have said, when it rains, it pours. But I'll take it.

Next up: Persistent Geraniums and other summer plants that don't know what season it is.