A Fall Garden Cleanup in Toronto's Oakwood Village
Hostas are perennials found in many Toronto gardens (to the point of being overused) so more often than not, I deal with removing their collapsed foliage during a fall cleanup. The picture below shows the typical "fall hosta flop" as these perennials are entering into dormancy. You could leave the foliage alone over the winter as the plants will send up new shoots faithfully next spring but most of my clients want to remove this type of mushy mess now.
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| Oakwood Village Toronto Fall Backyard Cleanup before |
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| Oakwood Village Toronto Backyard Fall Cleanup before |
This burning bush above still has decent fall foliage. I'll remove the faded flowers from the Hydrangea paniculata "Grandiflora" standard since the client doesn't see this shrub from the house. If it was my shrub, I'd leave it alone until next spring as the flowers do collect the snow, providing some "winter interest".
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| Oakwood Village Toronto Fall Backyard Cleanup before |
The shrub on the right side of the picture above is a ubiquitous Rose of Sharon. I'm not in love with this plant but the client wanted to keep it during this garden's makeover which I profiled in this post titled "Establishing Proportion in a Toronto Shade Garden ("Yes, these junipers will get big!") I find the Rose of Sharon just self-seeds everywhere so as a preventive measure, I cut off as many seedheads right now but it's guaranteed that I'll also pull out a dozen seedlings by next summer.
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| Oakwood Village Backyard Fall Cleanup before |
The side bed has faded Astilbe, Brunnera and Chelone (turtlehead) stalks and stems, which I'll cut down. At the front of the border, the row of sweet woodruff is filling in nicely, except for one spot to the right where it died. I'll need to replace it next spring!
And here are the corresponding pictures afterwards:
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| Goobye hostas until next May.... |
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| Oakwood Village Toronto Backyard Fall Cleanup after |
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| Oakwood Village Toronto Fall Backyard Cleanup after |
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| Oakwood Village Backyard Fall Cleanup after |
A perennial that hasn't collapsed (and won't) is a very useful sedge (Carex) shown below called "Ice Dance". Toronto had two nights of very atypical and extremely cold temperatures in the minus 10-15 Celsius range last week but these sedges didn't care.
They are not touched at all right now as they will keep their form all winter. By next spring, yes, they'll look a little beat up with many of the leaves turned brown. I just grab the old leaves "by their hair" if you can imagine and clip down to 6 inches or so. New and fresh-looking shoots will emerge by May.
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Carex morrowii 'Ice Dance' Japanese Sedge
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