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Generally, red is the most difficult color to incorporate in the garden. It's stark and attention grabbing enough that I understand why it is used by bullfighters.

I almost used the word spring and summer ahead of the word garden in the first sentence because my difficulty with red is limited to the blooming season. In the fall and winter bring on the red.

Every landscape needs a focal point and since most of our fall colors are built around yellows, red is that focal point. In the fall or winter my attention is always drawn to red.

Four shrubs quickly come to mind if you are looking for red fall foliage. The most common is the Euonymus alata, commonly called burning bush. The other three are sweetspire, choke-cherries and smooth witherrod. The latter three are natives.

Burning bush has been a standard for as long as I can remember. The others have emerged because they are natives and do not share the many insect and disease problems common with euonymus. Some also fear that this plant can become invasive. My observations are that both problems are much less than is often reported although I am now selecting the other three for my plantings.

Sweetspire orItea virginica, in addition to excellent red fall color, adds a white spring bloom and a winter stem color with some ornamental value. This plant will grow anywhere but I would keep it out of windy spots and site it out of the full afternoon sun.

Choke cherry,Aronia, also produces black or red berries. The red-berried varieties seem to have better leaf retention than its black counterpart. This berry is not the first choice of our birds.

Smooth witherrod orViburnum nudumgets a deep mahogany leaf that is just now beginning to change. It also will sport deep blue and pink berries if a pollinator is also planted. Two common cultivars are ‘Brandywine’ and Winterthur’. Both were named for local landmarks.

The other fall red that generally persists into winter are plants with red berries. These include the hollies, both evergreen and deciduous, as well as many viburnums. In each case you need a pollinator to get berries. In the case of hollies- a male and female are both required, but only the female will fruit. For viburnums, two cultivars of the same species are needed to cross pollinate and BOTH will fruit.

The final red shrub that I prize for winter is the red-twig dogwood;Cornus stoloniferais the Latin. This plant is also a native, but as usual, selections of the native are most often used in our landscapes. A great new dwarf selection is ‘Pucker Up’ with corrugated leaves and the same great red stems.

My favorite fall tree for red color is the maple,Acer rubrum. That is our native maple which generally has smaller leaves and probably gets its name from the color of its spring buds. This is a maple. That said I quickly add that it does not share the real nasty surface root structure that is common with the large leafed maples. It also does not provide the dense shade common with some maples.

There is an aging gnarled American red maple growing in a waterway on the farm. It was there long time before I built my house. Every fall I am treated to a brilliant red display.

Nearby are other seedlings of the same tree, which show great variability in leaf retention and color. I guess that is why in the market place you will generally find selections of this native plant. There are some really good ones.

Do they bullfight in the fall and winter? If they do they must share red with my garden.

Viburnum dilatatum 'Cardinal Candy' planted along our fencerow.  Plant another V. dilatatum for best fruit set.

Last week I was pulling Canada thistle on the farm, and lamenting that this weed was the bane of my existence. A customer casually remarked that they don’t see it too much in North Jersey, but noticed lot around here, especially in meadows and roadsides.

For those of you fortunate enough to not be familiar with this prickly perennial weed, Canada thistle spreads by two methods. Seed is produced from large fragrant purple flowers in the summer, and creeping underground roots send up new shoots. Often you see a round patch of Canada thistle 6-10 feet in diameter- that is most likely all one plant family connected by the same root system. This is why my futile attempt to pull them does little good. The stored nutrients in the roots will just allow the mother root system to send up new shoots a few days later.

Seeds produced this summer are germinating now that temps are cooler and the fall rains have started. After about 6-8 weeks, a new seedling has established enough of a root system to reproduce itself. Seed also survives in the soil for up to 20 years. Cultivating brings old seeds up to the surface to germinate. This practice also segments the underground root system stimulating it to send up fresh shoots. A more ingenious survival strategy would be hard to create.

In pastures Canada thistle is a problem because animals don’t like to graze them- little wonder. In mown hay fields, they are not welcome either. For the homeowner they are more of a nuisance. But if you want to get them under control now is the time to do it. Fall treatment with broadleaf herbicide on new shoots and established colonies is most effective as the plants draw the chemical to the roots. This kills the shoot and limits the colonies ability to regenerate. Treat now and again in the spring on newly emerged shoots. It may take several seasons to totally get infestations under control.

Canada thistles aren’t all bad. The flowers provide bounteous pollen for honeybees and the plants themselves are a larval food source for the Painted Lady butterfly caterpillars. Luckily the caterpillars also like holly hocks, and other members of the malva family. I’ll stick with those.

“Fall is the best time to plant.”This is a mantra that both dad and I have been chanting for a long time. The soil is warm, the air is cool. This encourages root growth over shoot growth. The fall rains usually come and help with watering.

However there are two problems with that.

1. Most of us have been in the garden since March, pruning, mulching, watering, planting, weeding, harvesting and (hopefully) enjoying the results of our labor. By August, Sept, and October, we are winding down, and don’t want to spend as much time in the garden.

2. Waiting too long to plant certain things doesn’t give them a chance to heal into the ground before winter. Last year this was a problem as winter was unrelenting. Late-planted shrubs and perennials that would have normally been ok, heaved when the ground froze.

This summer we planted a sweeping bank behind several of the grenhouses and down towards my house. There are more areas yet to fill in. I have very few qualms about the majority of my wishlist. Several large daylily clumps will be divided and moved when they finish blooming. Some hostas will find their way towards the woods edge. Ferns, coralbells and tiarella will fill in that shady bed. Under the dogwood tree I’m planning a nice patch of lamium to cover the ground.

Ornamental grasses should be put in soon. Even though they look their best in fall- the time to plant most grasses is June-early September. Warm season grasses especially need achance to establish their roots before winter.

The majority of shrubs can successfully be planted through late autumn. I have my eye on some viburnums and service berries but I will probably not be in a big rush. If you want to plant butterfly bushes, hydrangeas, vitex, crape myrtles or anything else slightly tender, I would lean more towards September.

Bare-root trees and shrubs are also prime candidates for planting in the fall. You can plant dormant trees, successfully through when the ground freezes.

Now is also a great time to plant bulbs. Daffodils, tulips, crocus, scilla, and more unique beauties like frittilaria and allium planted now will yield a big return come spring.

If you have perennials too big for their spaces, divide them now. Dividing spring or summer bloomers now won’t disrupt their next year’s flowering. Divide fall bloomers in the spring.

The garden season is not over. Many fall-bloomers, like asters, mums, and sedumsare now coming into their glory. There is still time to plant, but don’t procrastinate.

One of the many jobs one gets at the farm when you’re slightly retired is caring for the large daylily bed at the end of the driveway. Recently, while clipping a multitude of spent flower heads, I got to thinking about how daylilies have changed over my lifetime.When I was a small child, grandmother had two orange ones. One was double and one was single. I don’t think, but I’m not sure, that the single was the one often seen naturalizing on road banks and flood plains.

During the next few decades, new colors appeared starting with whites and yellows. Today there is a wide pallet of colors, plant sizes, singles and doubles and varieties to extend the blooming season. Numbers of named varieties have soared well into the thousands.

A major breakthrough occurred in 1975 with the introduction of 'Stella de Oro', a short yellow orange variety that re-blooms. If you want to pretend you’re really knowledgeable you will say that they aren’t re-bloomers.Re-bloomers have a heavy flush and then bloom sporadically for the remainder of the growing season.Technically Stella de orosbloom, then rest, and repeat that sequence several times over the season. But who cares. They soon became the most popular daylily and many will say they are overplanted. Recently other colors have been added to this family but the jury is still out as to whether they perform as well as the original.

Just before the turn of the century so called true re-bloomers began to appear. They were expensive, so I decided to buy a few and grow and divide them to keep the cost down. I neatly lined the garden with several rows on drip irrigation and regular fertilizer. Of course a few wondered off and found spots in the landscape.To my dismay, the ones in the controlled environment re-bloomed reasonably well while the ones in the typical garden did not perform. I took from that experiment several things. As I often fear is the case , the marketers were well ahead of the plant developers. Second,I believe that daylilies benefit from water and fertilizer more so than most perennials.Why am I writing this? In my roadside bank I am impressed with the volume of bloom, the length of the season and the number of today’s varieties that are strong re-bloomers. If you see a daylily variety today marked re-bloomer,it is proof that the developers are on the same page with the marketers.

My fear is that the recent string of rainless days and increased temperatures may reduce that bed from a spectacular season to one that is just really, really good. The bed is not all re-bloomers but has enough to re-light my love of daylilies that started with two orange ones more than six decades ago.

The cantaloupes in my garden have spent most of the month of August thinking that it was September. They generally don’t like September.  Research, and my experience, suggests that cantaloupes usually begin to falter when night temperatures begin to dip under 60 degrees. That has happened frequently this August. You get vine decline often from mildew, delayed ripening and loss of flavor.

Interestingly, I maintain three vegetable gardens, two of which had multiple plantings of cantaloupes. Melons in the garden facing north seem to have fared worse than those in the garden facing south. Could that siteing have made a difference of a few critical degrees? I always try to get cantaloupes into early September but this year the late plantings may have been a mistake.

On the flip side, I try to get a head start on the fall cole crop season by violating the rule that says you never plant cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli or brussel sprouts before July 1. My mid June planting has supplied cabbage and broccoli and has cauliflower heads forming. Brussel sprouts are of course a long season fall crop and need to be planted normally in early July.Unfortunately, a groundhog learned to climb a not too sturdy fence at one of the gardens and proceeded to eliminate the cauliflower, then the broccoli and finally the brussel sprouts while sparing maturing cabbage. I wish his taste buds were the opposite.

Some of the other warm season vegetables, like tomatoes and peppers, also seem to be showing delayed fruit development. Perhaps it is the weather or maybe I got a little aggressive with fertilizer which fostered growth while delaying fruiting. The potatoes sure liked the fertilizer and maybe the weather, too.

On the flower side, the cooler temperatures extended the life of most blooms on both perennials and annuals. Often flower beds, both annual and perennial, look about petered out by August. This year most remain quite respectable.

Several days ago I was making a dash from the dam at Conowingo to the farm when I spied a yard side fence under planted with some of the showiest petunias I have ever seen. Usually I only brake for people or birds but I slowed abruptly to savior the moment.

On travels to New England, Alaska and maritime Canada we have often marveled at the beauty of their annual flowers. The reasons are cooler temperatures, lower humidity and longer days. This year the north sent us two of the three and we should celebrate and not complain, even when occasionally one of the cantaloupes has little taste.