Ross Collins | The Accidental Gardener

As we rush toward Halloween month, north country gardeners may become either resigned or anxious. Re-signed, if we think it’s too late this sea-son for the planting we neglected. Frost probably has scuttled the annuals. It’s looking pretty dead outside the storm windows.
But more informed gardeners are not resigned at all. They are anxious, because there’s still so much to do—and they actually still have time to do it.
“A number of people I have talked to still have planting left this fall,” wrote area garden writer Dorothy Collins in a column published October 28, 1984. Mom! October 28? “Some of them are experienced gardeners—in fact, a few of them are experts,” she continued, probably counting herself in one of those categories. “Are they still going to try to plant the leftovers? For the most part, yes.”
Many gardeners know that tulip bulbs generally have no problem settling into the colder soil of late fall. They can be planted almost as you’re thawing your Thanksgiving turkey—November. Smaller bulbs also, but these will be more risky. In all cases, Dorothy counseled mulching so that tulips, snowdrops and squills (probably we can add hyacinths to the list) can put down a root system before the final freeze. Dorothy counseled mulching with dry leaves, hay or straw.
What about perennials? Yes! No, really? “But hurry,” Dorothy suggested, keep the mulch ready, and wait for a warm, dry day. “As we know, there aren’t going to be many of those,” she wrote, so when one comes, “it might be worth ar- ranging for the day off from your job.” Anxious gardeners need priorities.
Some of us like to roll our pot-ted houseplants into the yard for a summer vacation. Sometimes we forget to roll them back in. “Should that happen and the plant freezes, don’t give up,” Dorothy suggest- ed. “Cut the top down and it may come up again from the roots.”
That salvage operation did save my peace lily (spathiphyllum) that caught a wee nip o’ the frost a few years ago, but I read with a might surprise Dorothy’s advice for annuals: even after a light frost, you can take cuttings from tender annuals such as impatiens and begonias. “Chances are that new growth has already appeared at the base,” she observed. “Dig up the plants, cut off the frozen top growth, and pot up the plants.” Okay, try it, but I’m going to be a hard skeptic regarding success on that one. I don’t re-member my mother ever actually succeeding either.
Many of us like to take herbs in-side to enjoy a few snips in the winter. Parsley is one good candidate, if you have a florescent grow light. Dorothy tried that but reported a mediocre result, as herbs prefer full sun, not tube light. Still, “we did enjoy cutting parsley occasion- ally throughout the winter.” Herbs such as sage, French tarragon, coriander, chives and mint are perennials and so you can expect them to come back (in the case of mint, boy, can you expect it). Thyme and dill self-seed. (Well, they are supposed to, though I have never had great luck.) Marjoram and rosemary will not winter over, however, and “must be taken inside and moved back outdoors again next spring.” (That is, if you can keep them going over winter. Also not a green-thumb moment for me.) And basil? No, no and no. It’s a tender annual, and if you haven’t harvested yours by now, your basil pesto is going to have to come from the grocery store.
At some point, though, the trees are bare, the walks are icy, and the trick-or-treaters are wearing costumes inspired by puffer coats. You may have missed that fall planting window. Dorothy suggested as last resort in freezing ground: heeling in. “You do this by digging a trench which is straight down on one side and sloping on the other.” Lay the plants on the slope with tops protruding, cover with soil and mulch well. “Trust to luck that they survive until spring,” and leap back to dig and plant them as soon as the buds are on the trees, the ice is nearly melted and the Halloween candy corn has finally been thrown out.
Editor’s note: Dorothy Collins wrote a weekly garden column for the Fargo-Moorhead community from 1957 until 2008. Her last column appeared just a few weeks be-fore her death at age 92. Many of her columns were based on experiences and challenges of her extensive gardens in south Moorhead where she lived during the entire time she wrote. Dorothy was an accredited flower show judge who herself collected boxes of ribbons for her own entries at flower shows and fairs.
Her son Ross, who grew up in Moorhead but now lives in Fargo, is a professor of communication at North Dakota State University. But he also tries his best to keep up his flower beds and gardens in his south Fargo home in the Hawthorne neighborhood. He calls himself the accidental gardener, because while gardening was never really his hobby he did learn a lot as his mother dragged him from flower show to show and nursery to nursery as a kid. He also worked at Shotwell Floral for a short time, a job that pleased his mother be-cause he could get a discount on plants. He has served as president of the FM Horticulture Society, a group his mother co-founded in 1977.
The gardening stories he relates here are based on his experiences growing up with one of the region’s best-known gardeners, as well as his gleanings from his mother’s thousands of columns. Dorothy’s book, Flowers Between the Frosts: How to Grow Great Gar-dens in Short Seasons, is available from the NDSU Press.