The Bloom Blog: 2019 Season Finale

3rd generation Capon family member and Grounds Manager, Ginny Brill, shares tips, tricks and information about Capon’s flowering plants in this last “Bloom Blog” of the season…

The trees are starting to put on their fall colors as the Capon gardens’ colors are fading and the grounds crew has been busy pruning, collecting seeds, dividing perennials and making plans for next year.

Fall is tied with spring for my favorite gardening time of year.  The days are cooler, fall rains are usually nice and soaking, giving growing things a shot in the arm before winter. And there is time for newly planted trees, shrubs and perennials to settle in before the ground freezes.

I mentioned the fall blooming crocus in my last blog… however sadly they have come and gone here. I think that stretch of unseasonably hot weather just shortened their bloom time. The fall crocus is similar in one major way to Magic Lilies. (see the last blog post here)  The fall crocuses also send up nice “bunches” of green leaves in the spring, brightening the early spring garden with happy spots of bright green color. They are in the plant family Colchicaceae, unlike the true crocuses which belong to the family Iridaceae.  The variety we have here at Capon are the “Colchicum autumnale.”

During late summer, as we were digging up and dividing overgrown perennials and struggling to find places for the extras, we realized that we really did have much, much more than we needed.  That’s how the idea to have a plant sale to share our “extras” was born.  For Labor Day Weekend we cleared out a space in our greenhouse and began offering plants for sale.  We are pretty much finished with sales for this season but plan to start back up again with plants for sale in the spring.  We seed several annuals and often end up with more plants then we need.  So be sure to check us out when you come to Capon!

And finally, what better way to close out the blog for this season than with a picture of the most commented on and asked about plant. Anyone care to guess?  Yep! The non-stop tuberous begonias in the white pots on the Main House front porch! (Did you guess right??) This year’s variety was a little different than the previous year’s flowers but just as stunning.  We get them from a local grower who gets them in her greenhouse as cuttings. I have not seen them available many places, but you can order them from catalogs that carry bulbs. By the end of the season, our plants will grow a small corm or tuber (assuming we’ve kept them out of freezing temps). We could save these over the winter and then pot them up in early spring, keep them in a protected place and watch them grow.  I remember my dad doing that for so many years. If my parents would go away for several days, it would be my job to water the begonias and watch out for squirrels who like to dig them up!

So, when the wind and snow are blowing, just picture yourself in one of the wooden gliders on the Front Porch, gently rocking back and forth admiring the begonias….

Have a good winter. Thanks for reading!

Ginny