Moya Andrews

On today's Focus on Flowers, read the words of John Keats... "Ode to Autumn."

The smaller alliums bloom later than the giants. Try the ‘drumstick', a dark purple, which blooms in July and naturalizes well, or Allium ‘Moly Jeannine', which throws up 2 inch umbels of bright yellow florets in May. There are so many to choose from, and the more you have the more you will want.

If you garden in zones 5 through 9 and are looking for a small to medium shrub that has fall color, Itea virginica, commonly called Virginia Sweetspire, may be a good candidate. It has white flowers and grows well in shade or shine.

Winterberry produces a grand display of bright red berries that persist and light up its branches long after all of the leaves have fallen.

Take a good long look at your garden and think about how you want it to be next year. For example, do you need to reduce, increase, or alternate specific colors?

The autumnal equinox occurs during the third week of September. It is the time when the sun crosses the equator making day and night of equal length on all points of the earth. After the equinox in Autumn, the days grow shorter.

Chrysanthemums went to Japan in the fourth century and became its national flower. They were introduced to Europe in 1688 and arrived in America in 1798.

Although this is not substantiated, some believe that gladioli were "the lilies of the field" that Jesus spoke of in the Sermon on the Mount, for they grew wild in the Holy Land.

I am lucky to have a large garden space and so I have the luxury of being able to dedicate some of my beds to a single perennial species.

In her book "The Once and Future Gardener," Virginia Clayton provides examples of articles that were published in popular American gardens magazines between 1900 and 1940. One article by Helen Wilson focused on spire-like flowers.