Havenwood October Garden Tour
Mid-Autumn: Dahlias, Asters & Leaves
“In these sheltered gardens flowering time was not quite over and the pungent scent of chrysanthemums drifted from them, to mingle with the scent of the bonfire in the Deanery garden and the smell of the wet fallen leaves.
How well Isaac knew these scents of autumn and the butterfly touch of falling leaves upon his face, sad or happy as his mood might be.
Winter, spring and summer did not accommodate themselves to one's moods as autumn did. They lacked its gentleness.”
🍂 Elizabeth Goudge, The Dean’s Watch
Welcome to Havenwood in October!
My garden is located in northwestern Pennsylvania, zone 5/6, about one hour north of Pittsburgh and one hour south of Lake Erie. It is divided into many different garden rooms, in semi-formal British style, with an emphasis on creating different growing conditions so that I can grow a large diversity of plant types. I use a good deal of successional planting throughout our space with the hope that there is always something interesting going on, even when our winters last for many months. That is where the structure comes in: yew, box and other evergreens build the walls and doorways through our family garden, and then each room is filled with flowers and foliage of all sorts.
Right now, we still have an abundance of autumn flowers! The A to Z of the season—Asters & Zinnias—as well as many others. Soon enough the frost will come, but for now we are enjoying the last days of dahlias blooming like mad, grasses that are still colorful, and freshness in leaves that will be stripped away by November.
I will take you on a quick walk around some of the garden rooms at Havenwood to see the sights of October, but you can read more about how I made these areas and what grows here during other seasons in my Garden Rooms at Havenwood series.
The Kitchen Garden
On the north side of our home is the Kitchen garden, home to the veg and cut flowers. I decided again this year that I would concentrate my dahlias planting in this garden so that I could give them the extra watering and rich soil that they prefer. It works very well! They have been marvelous for four months, since July 4th after a May planting. It is much easier to care for them here with the other cut flowers and veg which need more regularly watering, instead of in the perennial gardens that I rarely water during the summer.
Here is the full tale of making the Kitchen garden at Havenwood which I put together just last month.
The Long Border
Next door to the Kitchen Garden, along over 100 feet of the back fence, is the Long Border. It is a soggy, clay soil that we have improved by dumping sand right over the top to create something like our native PA prairie. It does a fabulous job of making a place for native self-seeders to create a wilder, meadow look. This month, there is one clear star in the border: ten-foot tall Helianthus 'Lemon Queen'.
The Bird Garden
I have two lesser known areas at Havenwood for you this month. The first is the newest garden area: the Bird Garden. This one is so named because it is the view we have from our dining room window that we have so treasured over the past decade for watching our many birds at our feeders during the wintertime. We have nearly all of the native woodpeckers in attendance, and many other interesting feathered friends as well. The planting is still developing in this area, but it includes grasses, which the birds love above all else for the seeds, and will have a number of berries. The birds also love perching on the Hydrangea shrubs nearby and the climbers on the house, which include a Climbing Hydrangea and Virginia Creeper.
The Curb
The second area that is lesser seen is the curb planting. We have many hundreds of feet of curb garden as it stretches around two sides of our almost-one-acre property. I am going to share today just the section that is outside of the Birch Walk, a garden that used to be our front lawn.
The Cottage Garden
This space is at the front of the house, and was formerly a lawn that ran right down to the street. You can read its origin story here in my garden rooms series. Just a few things blooming in here for October as I failed to plant new tender Salvias this year after mine died of cold in storage during last winter.
The Hot Border
The whole story of the Hot Border is one that I still have to tell, but it was the first ornamental garden that we created when we began at Havenwood in 2014.
The Woodland
As the temps drop and the leaves begin to fall, there are still some pretty things happening in our Woodland Garden this month.
Dahlia Bouquet
If you have made it this far I have a gift for you, dear gardener:
Thanks for stopping by Havenwood for a walk around!
Be sure to pop into Carol’s for Garden Blogger Bloom day and take a look at all of the lovely gardens around the country that participate.
Thanks for sharing your glorious October garden, Julie - or I should say gardens. I envy your ample Japanese anemones - I have just a single clump still standing in one very dry border, which has managed to flower despite being hit by a serious heatwave last month. We share the same approach to dahlias. Those plants can't survive in my borders but I've found that growing them in the raised planters of my cutting garden, where I can closely regulate the water they receive, works well.
I'm drooling over your Dahlia bouquet, so lovely! I too have a Heptacodium in my garden, but the bracts of mine never color that strong pink like yours. Julie, I really enjoy looking at your garden and get so many ideas from it. Do you have any Colchicums among your fall flowers?