All Things Gardening
Perennials that birds and bees love and that deer and woodchucks don't
- And I'm Mary Angish. - Hi there, Charlie. - Hi, Mary. - Well, Charlie, these two late summer perennials' names always remind me of like characters in a Greek tragedy or something, Hellenium and Voltonia. Can you talk more about these colorful late summer and fall plants? - Yes, I'd love to. They are not tragic. They are actually beautiful native plants that are pretty carefree. Don't have a lot of problems to them. Grow really well in our climate. They're in the Astor family. They both grow about three to five feet tall and they're great pollinator plants and deer rabbits and woodchucks don't like them. What can't you love about these plants, right? So, Voltonia grows up, like I said, three to five feet tall. You can either get a white or a pink version of it depending on the variety of it. And this one does well in wet soils and actually is pretty tolerant of clay soils too. So if that's an issue where you live, this might be a nice perennial. And both of these, by the way, are blooming now. And that's really why I'm highlighting them. They're blooming late summer into fall, a real nice alternative to just the regular goldenrod and asters that are out there. The Helenium's a little more particular. They like full sun, well-drained soil, but they actually can survive in wet areas. The species version of it does grow in kind of swampier areas. It has yellow, orange, or burgundy colored flowers depending on the variety. I grow one called Salsa. This is loaded with these flowers. They look like little hats. And they're just all over the top of the plant and you can't even see the foliage. There's so many of them. And there's a shorter one called Short and Sassy too. So these are two great alternatives to what else you might be looking for to add some fall color to your garden. Both of them will slowly spread. The Helenium will spread as a clump so you can divide it every three years. Botonia will be clumped like, but it'll also have rhizomes. So it will spread a little more aggressively. You might want to watch out for that one. If you have a formal perennial garden, it might be better in a pollinator garden or a meadow too. But both of them beauties to have this time of year and nice alternatives to the regular things that you see flowering right now. - Excellent. Well, I also heard that you heard from UVM's plant pathologist about the disease that's causing lilac leaves to drop this year. What did you hear? - Yes, Anne Hazelrig, a friend of mine up at UVM, did send me a quick little email after last episode that we did. And I was talking about a bacterial blight on lilacs. And she corrected me and said she's looked into it and they're actually fungal blights. So the difference between a bacterial and fungal blight may not be major as far as what you do, but it is good to be correct as far as what it is that's happening. And these are the blights that all the lilac leaves are dropping to the ground or they're all shredded up and they look really bad. She said, just like we talked about, the best things to do for something like that with your lilac is to clean up those leaves, prune it. So you want to prune it probably after it's done flowering next year or if you want to do it now, you can. But to open it up a little bit more to get more air flow. And the other thing is if you see live terminal buds, green buds on the ends of those branches, don't worry, your lilac will be fine. - All right, well, here's a question from listener Gary who wrote in to say, "I have about 20 blueberry bushes "and I labor over them. "I acidify the soil twice a year if possible. "I fertilize in the spring. "I mulch with pine mulch. "The bushes give me plenty of blueberries, "but they produce almost no new canes." And Gary says, "I'm concerned that I'm not seeing "brand new canes from the crown of the blueberry bushes. "How can I promote this among my good but aging canes?" - Yes, well, you're doing a great job to get the blueberries to be tall and to be so productive, but it is correct to be looking for that new growth, those new canes, 'cause those will be the replacement canes down the road for some of those older branches that are starting to fade and eventually won't produce so well. So if you want to get some of those new canes, especially get them coming off the crown or the bottom of the plant, look at the old canes. And if you have an old cane or two that's just not producing so well, and you'll know in the spring when you look at the buds, if you have fat buds on those canes, those are flower buds. If they're just small buds, they tend to be just leaf buds. If you have old canes with mostly leaf buds, you can cut it all the way back down to the ground. And that should stimulate more new growth to come up the base of the plant. If you cut them only part way, the new growth is gonna come right off of the stem that you left there. Tweaking your pruning technique should probably help. - Okay, if you have questions, you can send them to us gardening@vermontpublic.org. And it's that time of year. So next week we'll talk about fall garden care. Thanks so much, Charlie. - You're welcome, Mary. And I'll be seeing you in the garden. (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music)