Autumn Gardening To-Do Checklist for Healthy, Happy, Reimagined, Sustainable Garden Glamour

 

Let’s start off with THE most important element of good gardening: Soil. 

Soil is life-sustaining. 

Simply put; you cannot have a good garden without good soil.

How, you may ask, does one acquire this luxury? 

It’s easier than you may think. 

(Begin by not referring to it as “dirt!”)

Mums the Word: NYBG Kiku Chrysanthemum Art Celebrates Japanese Royalty; Kiku Cocktail Garden-to-Glass Garnish!

 

Don’t you love Kiku?  It’s even fun to just say it: Kiku, Kiku, Kiku! 

Kiku is, in fact, the Japanese word for “chrysanthemum” ~ the most celebrated of all Japanese fall-flowering plants. 

For me? I so often “rescue” chrysanthemums from suburban cast-offs left on the street for pick up near our country house and guess what? They rebloom gloriously.  The variety of colors and bloom types are a perfect way to mark the season.

I also feature the blossoms as a pretty Garden-to-Glass, Kiku Cocktail Garnish! 

But for the real chrysanthemum art, running now, is The New York Botanical Garden’s unforgettable presentation of Kiku, painstakingly trained to grow in a mesmerizing variety of forms and sizes, that pays homage to hanami, the traditional Japanese custom of enjoying the ephemeral beauty of flowers.