The fall garden has a lot to tell us, holding the clues to what went right (and wrong!) in our latest horticultural experiments. There is probably no better time to tease apart the insights, and lay the groundwork for enhancement and more creativity.

In the upcoming semester of my Virtual Garden Club with Ken Druse, which is celebrating its second anniversary, we'll make plans together to expand our plant palettes and hone our practices for the year to come. 

Just a few topics that Ken and I will cover in four 90-minute live webinars (all recorded as well):

• The latest ecologically minded practices, including the smartest fall cleanup ever
• Getting ready for winter sowing (gear and all) by saving seed from perennials, including native meadow wildflowers (or where to buy seed!)
• Maximizing the fall-into-winter display outside (from the showiest late-performing ornamentals to berry-laden native bio-hedges)
• Maximizing “offseason” productivity indoors, too—from microgreens (even herbs and pea shoots), to oddball houseplants you need to grow!
• Unusual and animal-proof bulb choices for fall planting, including native species, and the best choices for pots of forced bulbs for late-winter bloom
• Maybe the most popular feature: live questions and advance ones, too, that you can submit along with photos for help with your garden challenges

Get entire list of topics and what else a membership (just $154 through Wednesday Sept. 7) includes: 

In years when it rains consistently, here is what I do in September, I promise: divide and also add perennials (leaving room for bulbs next month); plant shrubs and trees; repair or renovate lawns; fight next year’s weeds (which slip out of moist ground easily). This year has mostly been too much of a good thing, which presents its own challenges; the 2022 growing season had been dry, dry, dry.

Rain or no, I’m under way on some key September chores, like putting up harvests, turning the compost, and even saving seed. It's perhaps the best month to really look at the garden critically, taking stock of its strengths, weaknesses…and opportunities.

That I am doing, but I am always eager for some predictable precipitation come September (and please, not 3 inches in an hour!) to tackle some of the rest successfully. Onward we each shall go in our fall garden tasks, weather or not.

I saw news of a new book called “Pressed Plants” recently, and it got me thinking about my grandmother and one of the many crafts she enjoyed way back when. Grandma made what she called “pressed-flower pictures,” bits of her garden that she carefully dried, arranged on fabric and framed under glass, some of which still hang on my walls. It also got me thinking of the 500-year-old tradition of pressing plants for science and the herbarium world.

Whatever the intention, pressed plants were the topic with Linda Lipsen, author of the book “Pressed Plants: Making a Herbarium.” Linda presses specimens in the name of science as a curator at the University of British Columbia Herbarium in Vancouver (like the Lilium leichtlinii, above).

She’s carrying on a method of recording the botanical world this way as humans have for centuries. We talked about what information those centuries of pressings hold for us in today’s world, and how and why we gardeners might want to give pressing plants a try, whether for art or for science.

Plus: Enter for a chance to win a copy of “Pressed Plants.”

How do you stash tomatoes for offseason use? Roast them with herbs, then freeze the resulting goodness, says cookbook author Alana Chernila, for a wildly flavorful, versatile staple of year-round cuisine.  

In 2008, when I was shifting my life from city-dwelling corporate executive to rural dweller, I met Alana. We aren’t close in age—she was at that time a mother to two young girls—but I recognized in her right away some common essential elements.

Including figuring out the best ways to preserve the garden harvest. Her herb-roasted tomatoes are one outstanding example, from her book “The Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying and Start Making.”