Farm and Home

There are some perennials that I can’t live without because of their fabulous late summer and fall performance. Plant them in your garden now because you will overlook them at garden centers come spring. My mixed perennial beds look the best this time of the year (barring any unpleasant summer drought). The black-eyed Susan’s, Russian sage and various species of Aster, Salvia and Nepeta are prolific but they are only mediocre anchor plants compared to some of the other species that come on this time of the year.

Now that fall is officially here it’s time to start planting fall flowers such as pansies, mums, and ornamental cabbage and kale. My favorite fall flower is pansy mainly because it is one of those tough little plants that will actually give you flowers periodically in winter as well as next spring. Pansies are not perennials as they hate hot weather but do reliably overwinter in Kentucky to give us two seasons of bloom, or three if you count the few flowers that pop up in winter.