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[00:00:10] When we first start gardening, it's usually because we went to a nursery or a garden center and we saw something that looked appealing to us and we said, well, I'm gonna go home and plant that. And then it doesn't work and we have no idea why. And then we go back to the nursery and we ask, well, why didn't that work?
[00:00:26] And oh, it's because you need to use these five different products. And we know that's not true, but this is kind of the path for most beginner gardeners . You are going to the location where the plants are available for purchase. So that ends up funneling your knowledge and activities into a very narrow range of what is possible.
[00:00:53] Lemme give you another example. If you're not starting things from seed, you're only able to plant what the nurseries stock at the time. I am very big on supporting our local independent garden centers, but I will be honest with you, that is my job, even great nurseries will sell plants that.
[00:01:10] Honestly don't work here in North Texas. But they also are going to carry things at specific times of year for example, in the middle of October, what are nurseries selling? They're selling pumpkins, right? So a huge portion of their shelving is going to be dedicated to pumpkins.
[00:01:32] It's not going to be dedicated to perennials. The reason I'm bringing all this up is because fall is the best time to plant perennials here in North Texas for many reasons that I will get into, unfortunately. It's something that not most people know. Most people plant things when they're available in the nurseries, which is typically in the springtime.
[00:01:57] But actually, if you want to have the best performance from your perennials, you need to start the year before you need to plant in the fall. If you plant in the fall, if you're planting things that are hardy to our zone, they will establish themselves through the winter.
[00:02:14] They're not going to bloom, they're not going to put on a lot of new foliage. What they are going to do is focus on root growth. A lot of times I'd like to say as winters when things are happening, , deep within the soil and places that we can't see. Our gardens may look completely dead in the winter, but the reality is a lot is actually happening.
[00:02:36] We just can't see it, and these plants are taking advantage of this cool time of year. To establish deep root systems, which eventually will store all of the energy that's necessary for that plant to put on a lot of foliage and to put on a big show of flowers. Once the days get long enough and the temperatures get warm enough in the spring.
[00:03:01] So that's why it's so great for us to plant perennials in the fall. When you plant perennials in the spring, what ends up happening is they don't have enough time to send out those deep root systems in order to support really healthy. Full foliage and big blooms. So that first year that you plant those perennials, you are not going to get much out of it.
[00:03:24] And that's why so many people get disappointed. They plant perennials and they're expecting it to look like it does on the plant tag. But what happens is once that perennial plant actually gets established by early summer, then we start getting our triple digit heat and that plant is going to suffer.
[00:03:41] When temperatures climb in summer, a lot of plants try to conserve resources, and one of the main results of this is. A lack of flowering from a lot of our perennial plants. Another thing about perennials is that they often take up to three years to reach their full potential. There's a saying among gardeners that is sleep creep leap, which describes how perennials perform in the first three years.
[00:04:11] In the first year they sleep. In the second year they creep, and in the third year they make this big leap. If we're planting things in the spring, we shouldn't expect very much, if anything, from our perennials in that year. However, if you plant your perennials in the fall, they have a huge head start, so they're gonna be in the ground.
[00:04:31] What? That's up to six months in the ground. That's a lot of time to prepare for spring and to look a lot better than they would if you planted in spring of that year. As I mentioned before, the problem with this is that most nurseries are not carrying a huge selection of perennials during late September and October.
[00:04:56] The prime planting time for perennials in North Texas. That means that we need to. Get more creative about where we are finding those plants. One thing that we can do is we can start our own perennials by seed indoors in August and then have seedlings ready to go into the ground in October. And most people who are starting seeds. Their seed stations are full of vegetable seedlings or cold hardy annual seedlings and not necessarily perennials. The good news is there are many organizations that do a fabulous job of supplying Texas native and adapted perennials to the public, and the main sources of these in the fall are going to be the Texas Native Plant Society.
[00:05:47] , Sorry. It's the Native Plant Society of Texas. Also Master Gardeners Associations and Texas Discovery Gardens. There are probably some other organizations that I am leaving out, and for that I apologize, but we have to look elsewhere when we are looking for sources of these perennials for planting in the fall.
[00:06:08] Now, I don't want you to get the idea that. Perennials are not available in nurseries at all. We are just not going to see the breadth of selection that we could in the spring. Another thing that you can do in fall, and I would probably wait further into October to do this, is that you can move and divide your existing perennials. One of my favorite ways to get new plants is to take an old plant, dig it up, cut the root ball in half, and then now you've got two plants. A lot of times perennials start to look raggedy.
[00:06:42] They don't bloom as well. The older that they get, and many perennials really benefit from regular division. If you have a perennial that's been in the ground for several years and it's not looking as good as it did after the first two or three years, it may just need to be divided. Now, not all perennials are capable of being divided.
[00:07:02] For example, if it's a woody. Perennial like salvia greg eye or butterfly bush or hardy hibiscus, those are perennials that we cannot dig up and divide by the simple structure of their stems, right?
[00:07:18] Perennials that have more fibrous root systems. For example, one plant that I love to divide frequently in order to get new plants and ex expand the areas of my garden that it covers is lamber. And lambs year is very easy to dig up and cut through that fibrous root system. And then you've got two plants.
[00:07:40] Not only is it a good way to revive existing perennials that you have, but it's another way for you to get new plants from existing plants. And there are also some perennials that will readily reseed themselves. There are many Texas native plants that are prolific in their reseeding.
[00:08:00] Where the seeds drop, new little plants will pop up. They are extremely easy to dig up in the spring. You can dig them up, you can pot them up, and you can let them grow on in this pot. And then you have a brand new plant that you can put some somewhere else.
[00:08:16] So October is a great month to start thinking about your perennial garden. Hopefully you'll be able to find some plant sales held by the organizations that I mentioned, and you'll be able to find some of these great. North Texas perennials that do really well here. I'm gonna go more in depth into this, specifically the best plants for our area, And give you the best tips for growing them. In a class that is coming up on the 13th.
[00:08:47] It's low maintenance gardening with perennials and self seeding annuals. I'm going to emphasize in this class the plants that require the least amount of work from you. And then I'm gonna talk about how to.
[00:09:00] Utilize annuals that recede readily in our climate. For example, this year, I didn't plant a single Zia in my entire garden. I have dozens and dozens of Zia plants out front.
[00:09:13] And they all came back from plants that I seeded last year, and the ones that I seeded last year didn't even do that well, but they all dropped seed and that seed all came back on its own. There is nothing more exciting to me than a garden that. Is full of beautiful flowers and I didn't do anything to get it that way.
[00:09:34] I'd really encourage you to join me for that class because I will talk about, , some of the lowest maintenance perennials that you can grow. I'll even talk about, perennials for shade. For those of you who have a lot of shade and sometimes feel left out, don't worry, I won't leave you out
[00:09:49] and I'll talk about annual flowers that are the best at reseeding, especially for our climate.
[00:09:55] And techniques that you can use that to increase the chances of success that you have with those particular flowers Coming back, thanks for joining me. In the show notes, you'll find a link to that particular class that's happening on September 13th.
[00:10:09] I also encourage you to sign up for our email newsletters. With timely planting advice and helpful information that's going to, , dramatically improve your gardening experience here in north Texas.
[00:10:21] Thanks for joining me this week, and I'll see you next week.
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