A glorious fall garden
Rich, burnished burgundy, purple, pink, gold, and mahogany can make your garden glow like a sunset. As the autumn leaves start to fall, a Minnesota couple, both professional gardeners who love this season, share ideas to brighten your yard.
Autumn marks the end of the growing season for most gardeners. But it's the start of a glorious time of year for Arla Carmichiel and Steve Kelley of Long Lake, Minnesota (15 miles west of Minneapolis).
and hardy water lilies dot the surface of
one of the ponds.
Wide borders outline their house, garage, and 31/2-acre property. Clumps of peach-colored plume poppies tower overhead. Bright-yellow stands of rudbeckia shine waist high above rosy-purple blooms of chelone, also called turtlehead. Below, still-green spikes of knee-high iris foliage add to the pleasing blend of shapes and textures.
year for Steve Kelley and Arla Carmichiel of
Long Lake, Minnesota.
This plant-loving couple pack as much as they can into wide beds that look better in fall than at any other season. In a sunny spot, tawny ornamental grasses and dusty-pink sedums complement the changing colors of nearby maples and oaks. A lacy combination of white Japanese anemones and yellow goldenrod seems springlike, except for the fall leaves nearby.
If it's an unusual perennial that peaks at this season, Steve and Arla probably grow it!
fall-blooming perennials Steve and Arla
plant include: bottle gentians; toad
lilies; chelone, also known as
turtlehead; Angelica gigus; Japanese
anemone; and variegated yellow wax
bells (kirengeshoma palmata), with
variegated euonymus and pulmonaria.
A great time to garden
Autumn isn't just Steve and Arla's favorite season, it's also the easiest time of the year for these experts to appreciate their suburban Minneapolis yard. Arla is head gardener at Noerenberg Gardens, a 73-acre public area in nearby Wayzata. Steve owns Kelley and Kelley Nursery, located about 1/4 mile from their home. The business has been in his family since 1922.
Both have the wiry, tanned look of people who spend most of their time outdoors. Their collaboration works because they share a deep appreciation for each other's knowledge, even though Arla's gardening style is a bit more boisterous than Steve's.
decorate one of Steve and Arla's gardens.
"We really enjoy gardening in the fall more than any other time. It's not so stressful," Arla says. "Things have slowed down with our work. We're not planting or weeding as much."
After their autumn wedding four years ago, which was at Noerenberg Gardens, Steve and Arla moved into their 1890 two-story stucco house. They loved the location, but the yard was bare.
"There wasn't so much as a peony," Arla remembers.
leaves.
Working on the property became a sort of busman's holiday: Arla and Steve couldn't resist creating huge beds that brim with plants selected for their textures and easy care. You won't find any annuals here, except for verbena, which reseeds itself.
The yard glows with purples, burgundys, browns, bronzes, and violets. Explorer Series roses in many colors bloom late into the year. Moths and bees flit about, gathering final tastes of summer. Frost paints a hint of dusty rose on leaves of the lilac hedge. A magenta firetail, about a foot tall with a pencil-slim flower head, stands out like a tiny torch against variegated grasses and yellow hostas. Even a few purple foxgloves linger.
Foliage for added interest
Although they've timed their garden to be at its best now, the couple plan something to attract your eye all year long. "We choose plants that are pretty, even when they're not in bloom," Steve says.
Favorite fall bloomers include asters, five varieties of sedums, plus Russian sage, chelone, toad lilies, monkshood, hydrangeas, Japanese anemones, snakeroot, and alliums. Steve and Arla love plants that have variegated foliage such as pulmonaria, with silver splashes on dark-green leaves, plus many hostas.
Arla creates combinations using plants with unusual leaf and flower shapes such as angelica gigas. Burgundy blooms of angelica rise above jagged, green foliage on a slender stem that grows as high as Arla's chin. For contrast, she weaves angelica between other plants.
and snakeroot glow with all the colors of
autumn.
Using texture in beds can be difficult for some gardeners to master. "Place plants together that have completely different leaf forms," Steve advises. "Blot out the color and think about the outline of the plant or the shapes of its leaves."
At any other time of the year, you'd never find Arla and Steve relaxing outside in their lawn chairs, drinking in their gardens' tranquillity. But this quiet, calming season lends itself to reflection.
"In summer, we couldn't think about just sitting here looking at the garden," Arla says. "We'd have to do something. By fall, we take time to enjoy it."
Bright ideas for lush beds
One of the easiest ways to make your flower borders appear fuller is to use grasses. Steve and Arla like blue oat grass, little bluestem, and a variety of grass called Heavy Metal panicum. To add soft hues, consider silver-leafed plants such as salvias and gentians (purple-flowered perennials). Big-leafed plants include joe-pye weed, yellow wax bells (kirengeshoma palmata) and silver sage, with soft, furry leaves up to 8 inches long.
For colorful autumn trees and shrubs, Steve and Arla recommend gray dogwood, Kentucky coffee tree (hardy and drought-resistant), ginkgo, crabapple, "Diablo" ninebark (spring-flowering shrub that sports shaggy bark in winter), serviceberry, black chokeberry, viburnum, and blueberries. If you prefer unusual bloomers, try alliums, all part of the family that includes onions and chives. Arla plants Ozawa, which grows 10 to 12 inches tall and sports a compact, round sphere that's about 11/2 inches wide and the color of strawberry soda pop. She also likes the foliage of curly alliums (senescens glaucum), which have little twists in the stems.
For great fall garden ideas, try visiting public gardens. "At Noerenberg," Arla says, "I take notes every day about what's working and what's not working. Memory fails, so take some pictures, too."
When the end of the season arrives, don't cut back plants with decorative seed heads such as Bowman's snakeroot, sedum, Siberian iris, joe-pye weed, Russian sage, queen of the prairie, and astilbes. "Too many things get cut down in the fall," Steve says. "We cut daylilies, phlox, and asters Ð anything that grows low or has dried-out leaves." Arla and Steve do a thorough weeding one last time, wax their tools, put pots away, and plant bulbs. "And we water, water, water," Steve says. "Extra moisture is very important in the fall."
In winter, they both love to watch birds and animals eating the seed heads of plants they purposely left behind in the garden. "The frosts are so beautiful," Steve says. "The grasses just glisten."
To buy many fall-blooming perennials:
Kelley & Kelley Nursery and Greenhouse
2325 South Watertown Road
Long Lake, MN 55356
Phone: 952/473-7337
Open Mondays through Saturdays 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. mid-April through October.
