Gardener Spends A Mid October Day Tidying A Forest Pansy Bed And Says The Fall Cleanup Costs No Money While Rescuing It From A Plant That Took Over

It is the middle of October, the leaves are coming down, and the garden is starting to look tired. The gardener behind Gardening with C says that is exactly the time to head outside for a little fall cleanup, and the best part is that it costs nothing. All you need, she says, is “a little elbow grease, a little sweat equity.”

Gardener tidies a forest pansy bed in mid October, beside an autumn garden planter

She works at a garden center nursery, and on a cool, crisp day she tackled what she calls the forest pansy bed, named for the beautiful mature forest pansy redbud growing in it. Her goal was not a final cleanup. It was one step closer to putting the garden to rest for winter, and a way to make things look fresher and better cared for.

A bed with a little of everything

The redbud has already lost many of its leaves, with plenty still to fall. The bed is mostly shade, especially on one side, but becomes a sun garden as you work around it, so it holds a bit of everything. Leaves were gathering on the pathway, annuals were ready to go, and some perennials needed tidying. A fern looked sad and tired, there were sticks to pick up, and some hostas could be cut back.

Her approach is simple and she lays it out in steps.

Remove spent annuals. This is the easiest step, with no thinking needed. By mid-October, she says, they have had a good time, and they come out whether they are in the landscape or in containers.
Clean up obvious debris. She loves her redbud but calls it a messy tree, constantly dropping little limbs and sticks into the garden.
Deal with the troublemaker, which in this bed was one very happy plant.

The plant that took over

The star of the day was a perennial that has been quietly taking over. She identifies it as a type of turmeric, Curcuma longa, also known as hidden ginger. She loves the big, variegated leaves that give a tropical feel and the white flowers that remind her of a pineapple, with the bloom at the base. But the tropical look is not what she is going for in this bed, and the plant is overtaking it so badly that she can no longer see the plants she wants to see.

The trouble is how it spreads. It travels by rhizomes underground, so simply cutting back the foliage will not stop it. You have to get the rhizomes out. She grabbed her shovel and carefully dug up as much as she could. She had to go slowly, because drip irrigation and lighting wire run through the bed, and she could not chop willy-nilly. The plant had even grown up around one of her unique stones.

Her plan was to dig it up, pull the rhizomes, cut off all the foliage and send it to the trash in the truck, and put the rhizomes in a separate bin. Anyone who wants some hidden ginger is welcome to come to the nursery and take as much as they like. It is very cold hardy, she says, and has been in her garden for years.

When the roots came out, she jokes, they look exactly like ginger, which is how the plant got its name. A yellow jacket even made an appearance. She also has a joke for her mother, who gave her the plant: “My mama has given me many incredible gifts but this plant she gave me for this garden is making me question whether she really loves me.”

She picked up every little broken piece she could find and tossed it in the bucket, but she expects some are still down there, since the plant likes moisture and had grown into the drip irrigation and around the base of the redbud. If shoots return in spring, she will remove them, and if she cannot get the root system out, she will selectively spray them. Her rule of thumb is a good one: “There’s no bad plant, but there is a bad plant placement.” Hidden ginger, she says, would be amazing in a shady, moist area where you can let it naturalize, and where low maintenance means zero maintenance. It just is not well behaved.

Finishing touches

With the main problem handled, she moved on to a few more chores. She selectively cut back perennials that were done, taking some ferns to the ground. She dug up a toad lily for her friend Cece, who does not have one, and potted it in an old nursery pot. She says mid-fall is a great time to transplant perennials. Then she raked out the leaves and debris she could.

Whether to leave or remove leaves can be controversial, she admits. In this bed, she takes them out. She notes that her property has tons of leaf litter elsewhere, so there is plenty of shelter for little critters.

She did not overhaul the garden. She says they showed it a little love and attention and took care of a few problems, and the bed already feels like it can breathe again. Best of all, she can see her plants.

Containers and house plants

The same thinking applies to pots. Emptying out annuals from the containers and the landscape makes things breathe easier. Her terracotta pots are not winter hardy, so she stores them away for winter and brings them out next spring. As time allows she will empty the rest of the terracotta planters, and some of the plants in them are house plants that will come inside. Her mother gave her a variegated aspidistra, also called cast iron plant, which she planted in a terracotta pot and will keep as a house plant this winter.

Tender plants will melt into mush after a good hard freeze, and at that point she will come back and clear them out. Until then, a mid-October session leaves less to do later and a tidier garden. As she puts it, it makes her brain feel tidier too.

Your own fall checklist

If you want to follow her lead this weekend, pull the tired annuals, pick up fallen sticks, cut back perennials that are finished, and share or pot up divisions worth keeping. If something is bullying the rest of your bed, dig out the roots rather than just trimming the leaves. The work is free, the fresh air is good for you, and next spring you will be glad you did it.

Willow and Hearth