From a kerchief-sized city back yard to the rolling hills of a magnificent country estate, there is hardly a garden or landscape where vines can’t be used to give the scene graceful beauty and vitality. And few other plants serve so many practical purposes as well.

Vines have character and individuality. Some are modest, and attract attention to the patterned texture of a wall rather than to themselves. Some are bold and brilliant, and command the eye. All give a fluid impression of movement no other plant form provides.

Vines are adaptable, versatile, can be trained to almost any shape or line, formal or informal, horizontal or vertical, sweeping or restrained. A controllable line is one of the landscape architect’s most potent tools.

And vines have variety in size, shape, color, contour, texture. There are fast- and slow-growing, deciduous and evergreen, annual and perennial vines. Some feature foliage, flowers, or colorful fall and winter fruit; some paragons provide all three.

Practically speaking, vines can do more for a garden, yet require less space and less care, than most people realize. They are generally strong-rooted, prefer not to be pampered, are subject to relatively few diseases. They occupy a small area, yet their tops are arranged to get full benefit of all available light and sunlight.

Coldframes and greenhouses – These structures, while not elaborate, can play a vital part in an active garden program. November is a good month to build or repair them. Both structures are similar in construction, but vary in heat requirements. A hot bed has some type of generated heat, but a coldframe depends on the sun.

The size of the structure will vary, depending on the amount of space and the cost. Several new plastics make good covers for these, and the price of construction is declining each year. Tender perennials can be stored in these for the winter and new plants started weeks ahead of regular schedule in the spring. If you have never tried your hand with a hotbed or greenhouse, do so and you will receive untold pleasure from the experience.

Flowering shrubs – This group of plants needs only corrective pruning to improve the habit of growth or remove crossing and rubbing limbs. Flower buds are already formed for next season’s bloom and pruning will remove valuable bloom wood. It is advisable to dig in two cupfuls of bone meal or other slow-acting food so it will be available as growth begins in early spring.

October brings a change in the air and things to do outdoors in the landscape or garden. Here are a few quick reminders that will payoff when the Spring shows up.

Continue to Plant Evergreens

Transplant evergreens in deep, rich soil, mixing peat moss, well-rotted manure or compost to retain moisture and encourage strong root growth. Select upright yews for accent in the foundation planting and box-leaf holly or Japanese pieris for foliage contrast. Viburnums, azaleas and rhododendrons are excellent subjects under oaks and high branching trees.

Fall Planting of Roses

Plant roses in well prepared soil that is rich in organic matter. If they cannot be planted immediately upon arrival, heel in a foot deep trench by placing them at a 45 angle and working soil around roots before covering them completely. If plants come too late and cannot be planted, they may be kept in a trench all winter. Cut back rose canes to 12-15 inches and for winter protection, mound earth 7-8 inches around the stems just before the ground freezes.

Consider the Lawn

Practically all varieties of trees and shrubs prefer a well drained location with plenty of water. Poor subdrainage is frequently the correct diagnosis for trees or shrubs presenting small bronzy foliage that droops and appears unhappy. The proper installation of drain pipes is the best cure for these sick trees or shrubs.

The proper steps for successful shade tree planting are not difficult to take. Select your trees at a local nursery, preferably when they are dressed in their bright fall colors. Well grown trees from the nursery have developed an abundance of fibrous roots which have resulted from occasional transplanting. Hence, they transplant more successfully than woods trees which usually have few fibrous roots.

For trees to be handled bare-rooted, select those about two inches in diameter or smaller. Good species of shade trees such as sugar maple, red oak, pin oak and sweet gum, which are larger than two inches in diameter, are usually best handled with a ball of soil burlapped firmly about the roots – B & B, in other words. Have the trees delivered on one of your gardening days, and try to have the holes dug before they arrive.

There are still flowers to enjoy in the garden in October. Unless there has been an unseasonable freeze, chrysanthemums are at their height, calendulas and verbenas are colorful, and roses are among the best produced all year.

Protecting roses for the winter – North of the Ohio River there are few areas where roses will survive the winter without protection. No one has found (so far) a material that protects roses as well as soil. But don’t make the mistake of scooping out soil from between the rows of roses; this would merely put all last summer’s blackspot and mildew spores to bed with the roses. Bring in fresh soil for the hilling job, piling it between bushes until needed.

Lifting gladioli and dahlias – Most of the gladiolus corms can be dug now for storage. This will leave only the last planting to ripen while freezing weather threatens. Also dig dahlias for storage as soon as frost blackens their tops. Both the gladiolus corms and dahlia roots should be dusted with fungicide after digging to reduce losses from disease during storage.

Lilies are making their appearance in garden center stores in ever-increasing numbers during October. The southern strains of Easter lilies are now ready for planting. These are hardy in southern gardens and produce great quantities of pure white blooms every spring. Plant them 6 to 8 inches deep in rich, well-drained soil.

Don’t overlook the wonderful ever increasing new hybrids. They grow beautifully in our gardens and can be had in nearly every shade and tone of white, yellow, orange, pink and red. You can have lilies in bloom from April to August by proper selection of varieties : Madonnas and the other new hybrids, April and May ; regales and tigers, June; rubrums and auratums, July; and formosanums, August.

Peonies can be planted in the Upper South only. They are too far out of their natural range to be grown successfully below Atlanta, Birmingham and Greenwood. Plant in a rich soil to which well-rotted manure has been added. Don’t plant the crown or eyes more than 1-1/2 inches below the soil level. They won’t bloom if you do.

Leaves – Falling leaves keep us busy raking but don’t destroy them. Leaves and pine straw can be used to advantage for mulching shrubs. Cap the loose leaf mulch with a light layer of pine straw to keep it from blowing away in windy weather.

Continue feeding through the fall but in a different way. Use slow-acting fertilizers such as manures, bone-meal or superphosphate. Use the latter in soils that are already non-acid. Manure on shrub borders, rose beds and bulb plantings will slowly feed the developing root systems through the winter but rake the manure from tulip beds in early spring as soon as the leaves show through the ground. Manure in direct contact with the foliage causes disease.

Vegetables – As soon as beans, corn or other crops are harvested destroy the old plants. Then, dig and pulverize well the vacated rows for fall and winter crops. Add a complete plant food. Use one pound for each 25 feet of row or 4 pounds for each 100 square feet. October planting should include carrots, leek, lettuce, kale, rape, spinach, mustard, Swiss chard, radish and turnips.

The appearance of our gardens next spring and early summer depends largely on how well we plan and plant them now (October). To the garden-minded people who have migrated to the South from the colder North I would emphasize that many plants (especially the hardy annuals) which they have been accustomed to planting in spring must, in their new Southern gardens, be planted in the fall.

In many areas the main obstacle to fall planting is dry weather; the soil is too hard to work. But since we cannot afford to delay planting, first soak the soil with a sprinkler, soil soaker or sprinkling hose until it is moist to a depth of 10 or 12 inches and then prepare the bed.

Though plant food will be carried down eventually to the plant roots by rains and sprinkling, much of it never gets to the spot where it will do the most good. Spread the plant food over the bed and mix it in thoroughly and deeply. This will encourage the roots to grow downward instead of toward the surface. If you can prepare the beds a few weeks before planting just like sago plant care, so much the better; this will give time for the plant food to dissolve, become somewhat neutralized and be more readily available to the plants.

In Northern United States and Canada

Plant deciduous trees and shrubs that are to be set this Fall without delay. Stake any that need support to prevent them being damaged by Winter gales. A mulch placed over the ground around newly planted trees and shrubs is helpful. The first part of November is Tulip planting time. Set the bulbs in deeply prepared, well-drained, fertile soil at even depth.

Now is the time to make hardwood cuttings of a wide variety of deciduous shrubs and some trees. Let the cuttings be pieces of shoots that have grown this year, eight to ten inches long and of healthy, well-ripened wood. After the cuttings are made, tie them in bundles and bury them horizontally outdoors or in a coldframe or cool cellar under six to eight inches of moist sand. In early Spring remove the bundles from the sand, untie them, and plant the cuttings vertically in nursery rows with just their tips showing above the surface.

There is still time to insert cuttings of evergreens, such as Hollies, Boxwood, Yews, English Ivy and Euonymus in a propagating bed of sand and peat moss in a cool greenhouse, but the cuttings should be made before they have been subjected to very severe freezing. Complete without delay the Fall clean-up of the garden. Make sure that everything is shipshape for Winter.

Most of the planting is done in the spring, between the time the frost leaves the ground and the time the leaf buds break on deciduous trees and shrubs. You may plant evergreens a week later as they do not usually start new growth as early as deciduous plants. In the fall, plant evergreens, herbaceous perennials and bulbs before the middle of September. Plant deciduous trees and shrubs a little later, when their leaves are ready to fall.

Care on Arrival

When the shrubs arrive from the nursery, unpack them and report immediately any discrepancy in the order or condition of the stock. If the material cannot be planted immediately, dig a trench and pack the roots close together in it, covering them with earth packed down firmly to exclude air. Evergreens that have the roots tightly balled and burlapped may be stood in the shade and sprinkled with water but not soaked.

Digging and Filling the Holes