Fall seems to have arrived. This week we saw colder temperatures and even some much needed rain. The fall also means fall colors. This week in the show we check out a bunch of plants that will give your garden a lot of nice color and texture as we move into the cooler part of the year. We are also still harvesting fruits from the garden. Another one of our stories in this week’s episode shows us how to pick and ripen pears and then how to serve them. It is a great time of year even if the weather is cooler!

This week we featured...

Jan's September Tips

We can sometimes get overwhelmed with the change of seasons. When the weather starts to change we all want to get out and get the garden ready for fall and winter. To get some tips on what we should be doing right now in the garden we stopped by and visited with retired OSU Extension Agent, Jan McNeilan. Jan started by talking about cleaning up old, dried up fruit on your fruit trees. This ‘mummified’ fruit can harbor diseases and attract insects to the tree and create problems for next season. Get it off the tree and compost or discard it. You can also start to clean up your raspberries and cane fruits too. Take out the old dead branches and canes. Leave the new growth canes from this season alone. These new canes will produce the fruit for next year. Jan was out in her back yard with a shovel so we talked about moving plants. She had just found out that her property line was not where she thought it was and so she was going to move plants to different parts of her garden to make way for a new fence. Right now she was not doing the actual moving of the plants, it is still too dry to do that. She had the shovel so she could cut around the plant and preparing it to move at a later date. This cutting around the edges was a little ‘root pruning’ because the ground was too dry to transplant. If she had needed to actually move the plant she would have mudded it into its new home. We demonstrated that process in last month’s tips. You can watch that process here. The main thing that we want people to know is that you can take a breath! Don’t be in too much of a rush right now. Just relax and enjoy the changing seasons. For more tips you can check out the OSU Extension website at http://extension.oregonstate.edu/gardening.

Van Essen Fall Color

Fall color can take many forms. It is not just about blooms, it can be the changing color of leaves and even bark. To prove that point we traveled back down to Lebanon to visit Ken at Van Essen Nursery. Van Essen grows lots of plants and shrubs that you can find at your local independent garden center. Ken started our tour of their 300 acres in one of their shade houses. There we saw a honeysuckle that we had seen on a previous visit a couple of months ago. Lonicera ‘Peaches and Cream’ and ‘Sweet tea’ were still blooming! They have very distinct flowers that really attract hummingbirds. We also saw a new Alstroemeria ‘Dark Purple’ which also was still blooming. The best part about this plant is that you just pull the old flower stems off and new ones come out of the ground! They have vibrant long lasting blooms too. Echinacea are known as a late summer bloomer, but some of them can look pretty tired and floppy by September. The one that we saw ‘Coral Firecracker’ still had great colorful blooms in various shades of pinks and oranges. It also stays shorter than some of the older versions. We then took off and went to one of their outdoor fields. The short ride took us to a field of Rhus (also known as sumacs) going by the variety name of ‘Tiger Eyes’. This plant proves that color isn’t always about blooms. The foliage on this plant goes from lime green in the summer to a vibrant red in the fall. This one also has a very unique bark that feels fuzzy to the touch. It also gets a red seed pod at the tips of its branches that also looks stunning. Our final stop in the fields brought us to a cart full of different plants. The first one of those plants was a holly called ‘Santa’s Delight’. It had a variegated leaf with a cream color edge and the new growth is purple, plus it is less prickly than a normal holly. The second plant on the cart was a buddleia called ‘Blue Chip Jr.’ A couple of years ago the buddleia (Butterfly bush) was banned in Oregon because it could become invasive. This new variety doesn’t seed and is safe to grow again. This one also stays shorter and would work great in a container. The next plant surprised us. It was a late summer blooming azalea called ‘Bloomathon Lavender’. Almost all azaleas bloom in the spring and then they are done. The plant growers and breeders are working on re-blooming plants and this one is spectacular with large pinkish blooms that appear twice a year. Grasses can also be colorful too. The next plant was pennisetum ‘Redhead’. The seed heads on this plant start by looking like cattails and then change to a lighter purple color. The final plant was a rose called ‘Artful Anna’. It has been blooming for over 2 months with bright yellow blooms and was still going strong. It also stays shorter than a lot of other varieties of roses. If you would like to find any of these plants, check with your local garden center or check out the Van Essen Nursery website.

Heleniums

One of the greatest flowers in the late summer is the helenium. One of the best breeders of heleniums just happens to live in our area and his name is Kevin Vaughn. We had previously talked to Kevin about his hybridizing of daylilies and beardless irises. Today we took a tour of his garden to learn how he hybridizes heleniums and to see some of his favorite varieties. He starts his breeding by selecting two varieties that he thinks have interesting characteristics. He then cross pollinates and waits for the seed pods. These new varieties are then thinned out and the best ones make it to market and your local garden center.

Some of the ones that you can find now in your local nursery include some that Kevin had in his garden. One of his favorites is ‘Mardi Gras’. It is a little bit earlier than some of the other heleniums and stays shorter in the garden. It has reddish orange blooms that look like a sunset. It also stays upright and doesn’t spread easily. The next one was a tall beauty called ‘Zimbelstern’. It has bright yellow blooms if you look at it from the front, but if you look at the back of the blooms they have a red splash of color. The final one that we looked at was ‘Fuego’. This one had a brown center with a ring of yellow, followed by a ring of red and then a ring of yellow again at the edge of the bloom. This was the shortest variety of the 3 and perfect for the smaller garden or even a container. Another great benefit of the helenium is that it is deer proof! Be sure to check out your local garden center and find one of these beauties and add it to your garden!

Smith Berry Barn Pears

With the arrival of late summer and fall we are also in the swing of harvesting our various crops. Tree crops like apples and pears can be harvested right now. Apples are very easy to tell when they are ripe, but pears can be harder to gage. We met with Rich at Smith Berry Barn (503-628-2172) to see how he can tell when his pears are ready. We started by heading out to an orchard full of pear trees which were loaded with green pears. This can be confusing because you actually harvest pears when they are mature and green, not yellow and ripe. If you have yellow pears on your trees they are actually over ripe! To see if the pears are ready you lift up a pear and if it snaps off at a 45 degree angle it is pretty close to being ready. You can also tell by cutting a pear in half. If it has black seeds then it is mature. But how do you ripen it? This requires chilling. Take your mature green pear and put it in cold storage. This changes the way the pear ripens. After a couple of days you can bring the pear out of the refrigerator and place it on the counter at room temperature. It will now ripen evenly and become soft and juicy. If you try to ripen it without the colder temps, it may turn out hard and gritty.

Next we went inside to check with Joelle to see how you can use your pears in various dishes. You can simply serve them sliced, with cheese and hazelnuts, on a platter. Remember to sprinkle a few drops of lemon juice on the slices before you serve them so they don’t turn brown. This is a nice presentation for an appetizer before dinner. You can also use the sliced pears on a salad. Joelle had also used a Honey-Pear Vinaigrette that she carries in her store as a dressing for the salad. The final dish was a dessert which featured poached pears in a red wine sauce with mulling spices. These were also covered with a reduction of the red wine sauce and included a scoop of vanilla ice cream. They have the recipe for poaching on their website. For more information on fresh fruit you can always check out their website. They invite you to come out and pick your own fresh pears and apples, or you can pick some up at the store along with all the ingredients to make these wonderful dishes!