Great Lakes Gardener's November Checklist
November is a last-chance month for Great Lakes households, when we complete the final of the garden jobs and admire the swan song of autumn before the start of winter. The garden may be likely to sleep, but there’s still much to see and much more to do.
Barbara Pintozzi
Mums (Chrysanthem x rubellum ‘Sheffield Pink’) and other late bloomers provide chances to observe the final of the butterflies and pollinators.
Barbara Pintozzi
Start bulbs for indoor winter blossoms. Store them in darkness, watering once a week, then take them out whenever they begin to sprout. As a beautiful option to compelling in potting soil, hyacinths (Hyacinthus orientalis)and paperwhite narcissus (Narcissus papyraceus) could be forced in water from vases.
Outdoors, complete planting spring-blooming bulbs. If you run out of energy or time, place any remaining bulbs at a frost-proof pot and keep them outdoors where they are going to receive moisture. In spring you can transplant the bulbs or keep in them in the container and then add pansies (Viola) for a spring arrangement.
Barbara Pintozzi
Finish garden jobs prior to the beginning of winter. To stop damage, empty out terra-cotta and ceramic containers prior to moving them and any garden decorations indoors for the winter.
Some ceramic pots are frost tolerant and can be left outside, but they should be kept upside down or in a place where they will not be subjected to moisture during the winter. A covered porch is where this container full of the dried foliage of Baptisa ‘Purple Smoke’ spent last winter.
Barbara Pintozzi
Fall garden cleanup should be restricted to clearing out vegetable gardens and diseased foliage in decorative gardens. Remove and destroy the leaves of herbacious peonies (Paeonia lactiflora ‘Fen Yu Nu'( revealed here), since it could harbor the Botrytis fungus.
Barbara Pintozzi
Resist the need to produce a clean slate of the garden; depart perennials standing until spring to enjoy winter attention and to enhance the plant’s probability of survival (here, the withered foliage and buds of a Japanese anemone, Anemone x hybrida ‘Andrea Atkinson’). Wait until the ground has frozen to employ winter mulch of shredded leaves or pine straw, enclosing the base of the plant but not covering it.
Barbara Pintozzi
Gather mophead hydrangea seed heads for dried arrangements. Even though Hydrangea macrophylla seed heads are most commonly used, the seed heads of Hydrangea arborescens ‘NHCA1’ (Invincibelle Spirit) are also appealing. Sedum (Hylotelephium sp) seed heads are also great for dried arrangements.
Keep mowing the yard as long as the grass is growing and try to pick up all fallen leaves before the snow comes. Shred the leaves and then set them aside for winter mulch. Chop up old holiday pumpkins and add them into the compost pile after removing the seeds.
Spray-on deer and rabbit repellant should be implemented now to woody plants and evergreens. Most products last 3 months, which provides protection throughout the winter. Take note, however, that very hungry creatures may wind up desperate enough to consume plant material that is treated. It is a fantastic idea to offer some kind of physical barrier, such as poultry netting, to protect young trees and trees from marauders which will gnaw on any bark exposed above the snow line, possibly killing the plant.
Barbara Pintozzi
Savor the final of the fall blossoms and fall color. In an ordinary year (unlike last year), a few stalwart plants keep prospering in November, such as snapdragons (Antirrhinum majus ‘Snap Daddy Yellow’), sweet alyssum (Lobularia maritima) and mallow (Malva sylvestris).
Barbara Pintozzi
Since the last of these woody plants’ leaves drift into the floor, anglers will detect continuing fall color from ground-hugging plants as well. Each one of the perennial geraniums have beautiful autumn colour, but not one has foliage as durable as that of the big-root geranium (Geranium macrorrhizum).
Barbara Pintozzi
Semievergreen native woodland plants exhibit long-lasting autumn color as well, such as foamflowers(Tiarella cordifolia ‘Pink Brushes’), liverworts (Hepatica nobilis var. obtusa and var. acuta), coral bells (Heuchera sp) and foamy bells (Heucherella).
Barbara Pintozzi
Love seed heads, berries and fruits while they last. Many plants, such as the native Joe Pye weed(Eupatorium ‘Phantom’), have attractive seed heads.
Barbara Pintozzi
Crabapples (Malus ‘Prairiefire’), winterberry hollies (Ilex verticillata), roses (different species of Rosa) and various Viburnum species have fruit that’s decorative and brings wildlife.
Barbara Pintozzi
Search for the earliest signs of spring. If you dread winter, venture out and poke around on the floor in the garden, where new growth sprouts as a guarantee of spring from plants such as mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum), trilliums (Trillium sp), bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) and herbacious peonies (Paeonia lactiflora). Who knows, maybe you will possibly discover a snowdrop (Galanthus elwesii, revealed) preparing to blossom.
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