One of the definitions of chestnut I have found is “a stale joke”.   Another is “something, as a story, lacking freshness or originality”.  Perhaps I should put down the dictionary before it’s too late.  The chestnut that I would like to refer to in this writing is under the definition of “a tree”.

Chinese chestnut trees (Castanea mollissima), although there are none growing in the Winterthur garden itself, are found scattered amongst the estate. One location is near the old Winterthur creamery by the dairy barns, another by the golf barn along Chandler Road as well as a couple others located on the Biederman golf course.

In late summer the fruit of the Chinese chestnut tree, which is edible to humans, begins to drop. The nuts themselves are enclosed in a spinney or prickly pod-like structure that splits open when ripe. Sometimes the nuts will drop from this casing before the pod falls. Other times the pod falls with the nuts still enclosed. If one wishes to open a pod that contains a chestnut or two, be sure to wear some thick leather gloves for the spines are very fine and also very sharp! The nut of the Chinese chestnut is very tasty when roasted but I have found that of the ones that I have personally collected, about 50% of them are either rotten or have a worm in them. I suppose that cultivated trees are probably sprayed with something to prevent these things from happening. Also, since squirrels, deer and other wildlife also enjoy the taste of these nuts there tends not to be many left for a person to find on the ground especially when, as in the case here at Winterthur, you’re only dealing with a small number of trees from which to harvest.

Our native chestnut (C. dentata), as you probably know, was decimated by the Chestnut blight in the early part of the 20^th century. An estimated three billion trees were lost due to this disease. The American chestnut was a dominate tree species in it’s time and supplied a vast number of wildlife species such as deer, turkey, bear and the extinct passenger pigeon with a food source. It was also collected for human consumption not only by Native Americans but by early colonists, settlers and immigrants. Since the American chestnut’s demise, crosses of what remains of the species have been made with the Chinese chestnut and the Japanese chestnut (C. crenata). Progress is being made to produce a tree that is not only resistant to the blight but one that has the height and habit of our native chestnut.

While I’m on the subject of chestnut trees, the common horsechestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum), which is a Native of southeast Europe, produces large fruit but unfortunately it is not suitable for human consumption.

One last comment that I would like to make of the Chinese chestnut is that if you are considering planting one on your property be aware that when in bloom, the fragrance of the flower is considered by most to be unpleasant.

So like the song goes, Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…

On page 167, the chapter on Autumn begins with this paragraph:  “There is a day in August when autumn truly begins. In the morning there is a slight chill, and the sun that day will be high and pale and distant. It is not much more than a hint of things to come, so subtle that it passes almost unmarked by our consciousness.

Soon the heat returns and summer moves on, but nothing is quite the same. We notice quite suddenly that whole limbs of the black gum have red leaves, that the dogwoods and shadbushes in the woods have a bronzed, burnished look. Telephone wires sag with great flocks of tree swallows. Blackbirds no longer travel in pairs but in polyglot bands of several species. Corn in the fields is full ear and yellowing, and an occasional leaf on the sassafras is crimson. Winter is on its way.”

Hosta “Royal Standard” is in bloom in Enchanted Woods!

“… a mature, healthy tree can have 200,000 leaves. During 60 years of life, such a tree would grow and shed 3,600 pounds of leaves, returning about 70% of their nutrients to the soil.”
Wisconsin County Forests webpage

Think about how many millions of leaves will be gathered here at Winterthur and in the many gardens throughout the Brandywine Valley this autumn. Cleaning up leaves in fall is one of those meditative, seemingly inescapable, chores that come with caring for a garden. Here at Winterthur we still rake and blow millions of leaves, but more and more we are supplementing leaf removal with mulch mowing.

If you hate raking leaves you have a simple alternative – mulch mowing. Mulch mowing is a process that cuts up and macerates the leaves, leaving them in place in your garden to decompose over the winter and following growing season. While not promising a total escape from gathering leaves, it offers gardeners an alternative to dealing with piles of leaves.

Mulch mowing is not terribly complicated. I’ve illustrated the basic steps below with photos and captions.

Set up your mower for mulching; most mowers allow you to run them without a bag and with an insert that closes off the mower deck. This keeps the leaves and grass from being discharged and allows the mower to cut the vegetation into finer pieces.

Wear proper equipment. You should wear safety glasses, hearing protection, and boots when using this equipment. Leaves can conceal rocks, roots, and other obstacles – better to be safe than sorry.

Mow over leaves and any plants ready to be cut back. You don’t need to confine yourself to lawn areas. You can mow over plants, such as hosta, that are going to lose their leaves anyway.

Repeat mowing weekly or as needed. The photographs above were taken 5 minutes apart. You can see how the mower reduced the leaves to finely chopped pieces that will filter down to the surface of the soil. Whole leaves left in the garden tend to mat down and can smother grass, bulbs, and other perennials. The process of mulch mowing chops the leaves into finer pieces, allowing your plants to grow freely as the leaves decompose and return to the soil.

Today’s fall weather brings to my mind the sensation of biting into of a crisp apple. Sharp and clear, sweet and organic. The crisp air and bright sunshine pair perfectly with my favorite wool jacket and soft burgundy scarf. When I walked in this morning, the low bright light through the trees was practically begging to be photographed. Rushing to the garden, I caught a few frames of the light coming through autumn-hued leaves. 

This is one of my favorite months in the Winterthur Garden as fall color usually peaks during the last week of October. Hope you will have a chance to walk in the garden this month. Enjoy!

Crisp clear days, hints of fall color, and asters flowering in the meadows – autumn is here! Join us for a walk through the garden to see the highlights of fall from 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm on Saturday, October 10.

Dress for the weather and wear walking shoes. In case of inclement weather, call 302.888.4915 after 10:00 am. No reservations necessary. Included with all admission tickets, Members free.

Enlisting the help of my son Parker, the 3 of us pushed aside the rough leaves of the pumpkins and gourds in a sort of reverse Easter egg hunt – looking for the sometimes small and camouflaged gourds. We carefully loaded our harvest into the back of a couple of utility vehicles and took them to the Head House for cleaning. Using wash, bleach, and rinse baths, we cleaned all of the gourds and pumpkins and set them out to dry. One of our staff members, Marlin Dise, reminded me that the moisture content for our harvest is probably very high and has probably resulted in greater losses. Sure enough, some of the damaged gourds and pumpkins began to rot within hours. Nevertheless there are still a couple hundred intact and drying nicely, waiting for their autumn debut.

by Suzanne French

Dotted throughout the garden hydrangeas provide delightful pockets of color among the lush expanses of summer green. For the past three months, they have dazzled us with their pink, blue, purple and white blooms. But with the season waning their mopheads, lacecaps and panicles have all but faded away. Even Hydrangea macrophylla Endless Summer™ knows summer is at its’ end! With the cooler nights, shorter days, and the ground scattered with fallen leaves it appears autumn is certainly near. Oakleaf hydrangea foliage will turn a splendid red, the huge flowers of Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’ and ‘Grandiflora’ will age to attractive hues of chartreuse and the red stems of Hydrangea ‘Lady in Red’ will become even more evident. And while I look forward to enjoying all of these attributes I can’t help but want to enjoy the eye-catching flowers, for which hydrangeas are best known, for a little while longer.

Luckily I can! In the dappled shade of Enchanted Woods grows Hydrangea involucrata, which is now in full bloom. Striking lacecaps, made up of delicate purplish blue fertile flowers surrounded by white showy sepals, emerge from huge peony-looking buds. It is the latest blooming species of hydrangea in the garden. This little known shrub grows to about four feet tall and wide making it a good choice for smaller gardens. Its’ leaves are covered with a bristly down making them fuzzy to the touch. A fun attribute where little hands, and big hands alike, may be sweeping across the branches! Originating in mountainous areas of Japan this hydrangea species prefers well drained sites. It also blooms on the new growth of the season! So no need to worry if winter gets a bit harsh. This hydrangea will still happily flower at the end of the following summer. Hydrangea involucrata is truly an excellent addition to any woodland garden!

The following is a list of some simple projects to consider. A couple are “quick hits” that will add some interest to your garden right away; others will take a little longer to yield their results.

Winter Sowing
Fall is a good time to order or gather seed for winter sowing. If you have never raised plants from seed in the winter, it is a far cry from the chore of raising seedlings in the spring. Winter sowing seems almost too easy. The process can be as simple as broadcasting a few handfuls of seed over a garden bed – a technique frequently used here in the Winterthur garden – or it can involve sowing seeds into pots that you leave outside through the winter. Either way, you won’t need to do much with your winter-sown seeds until spring. This technique works best with native plants, perennials, and hardy annuals. For more information about winter sowing there is a winter sowing website and a forum on GardenWeb.

lily-of-the-valley fruit with seed ready to be harvested

Hardwood Cuttings
Some plants are easy to propagate by cuttings, especially hardwood cuttings. Hardwood cuttings are taken in late fall through winter from woody plants such as forsythia, willow, and dogwood. The pencil-thick cuttings should be taken from last season’s growth and should include two sets of buds. Insert the cuttings directly into a nursery bed or plant them in pots that are heeled-in somewhere in your garden where you won’t forget them. The Royal Horticultural Society website explains the process clearly. Your cuttings should begin leafing out the following growing season and yield plants ready for transplanting by next fall.

Plan and Fine Tune Plantings
One of my favorite activities in fall is walking through the garden with a cup of coffee and several rolls of flagging tape. Enough of the garden is left from the growing season for me to remember what was successful and what failed, making it easy to tie flags around the plants that need to be removed, divided, or moved. I also like to put stakes and flags as placeholders in the ground for plants I want to add, which helps me make up my shopping list for next spring. The flags I use are color coded: white for removals (white = trash), green and white striped for divisions (2 colors = divisions), and red for additions and relocations. Fall can be a great time to shift plants to new locations. Most plants look bedraggled and sad in the fall anyway and will recover, for the most part, by the next growing season.

Buy Discount Bulbs and Plants
Fall is an excellent time to find bargains at local nurseries and on-line retailers. Just as the plants in my garden already look bedraggled, but will transplant fine, so too do many of the plants at my local nursery. On-line bulb retailers will often offer deals on overstocks of bulbs; sometimes discounting them up to 50%. This is the time of year I find myself purchasing plants and bulbs for trial purposes. For example, I have often contemplated adding a variety of the poet’s daffodil named ‘Actaea’ to one of my borders and have just found it on sale, on-line, for half the regular price. I’m going to purchase a couple dozen just to see what they will look like in the border next year. If they are successful I’ll order more; if they don’t work I’ll pass them on to a friend or compost them.

You may have discovered other projects or tips for the fall. If you are interested in sharing your ideas or insights, leave a comment on this blog entry and I’ll post it for everyone to use.

Think about how many millions of leaves will be gathered here at Winterthur and in the many gardens throughout the Brandywine Valley this autumn. Cleaning up leaves in fall is one of those meditative, seemingly inescapable, chores that come with caring for a garden. Here at Winterthur we still rake and blow millions of leaves, but more and more we are supplementing leaf removal with mulch mowing.

If you hate raking leaves you have a simple alternative – mulch mowing. Mulch mowing is a process that cuts up and macerates the leaves, leaving them in place in your garden to decompose over the winter and following growing season. While not promising a total escape from gathering leaves, it offers gardeners an alternative to dealing with piles of leaves.

Mulch mowing is not terribly complicated. I’ve illustrated the basic steps below with photos and captions.

Set up your mower for mulching; most mowers allow you to run them without a bag and with an insert that closes off the mower deck. This keeps the leaves and grass from being discharged and allows the mower to cut the vegetation into finer pieces.

Wear proper equipment. You should wear safety glasses, hearing protection, and boots when using this equipment. Leaves can conceal rocks, roots, and other obstacles – better to be safe than sorry.

Mow over leaves and any plants ready to be cut back. You don’t need to confine yourself to lawn areas. You can mow over plants, such as hosta, that are going to lose their leaves anyway.

Repeat mowing weekly or as needed. The photographs above were taken 5 minutes apart. You can see how the mower reduced the leaves to finely chopped pieces that will filter down to the surface of the soil. Whole leaves left in the garden tend to mat down and can smother grass, bulbs, and other perennials. The process of mulch mowing chops the leaves into finer pieces, allowing your plants to grow freely as the leaves decompose and return to the soil.