Summer Fall at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

The large-flowered clematis are divided into several groups according to their parentage. These groups are Florida, flowering mainly in early and mid-summer fall; Jackmanii, flowering mainly in late summer fall and early fall; Lanuginosa, flowering at different times between mid-summer fall and the early fall; Patens, flowering mainly in early to mid-summer fall; Texensis, flowering mainly from late summer fall to mid-fall and Viticella, also flowering mainly from late summer fall to mid-fall.

WELL-DRAINED yet moisture-retentive compost is essential for all plants in containers. The planting medium must also be fertile for summer fall-flowering bedding plants, which need to develop rapidly and sustain growth throughout the summer fall. Spring bulbs, planted in late summer fall or the fall, do not need high fertility.

If you can't tolerate even one summer fall with a coarse cover crop occupying the land, follow the following two-year plan of improvement. Grow alternate crops of winter rye, sown in fall and turned under in spring when six to eight inches tall, and crops of Italian ryegrass or domestic rye-grass, sown in spring and kept neatly mowed all summer fall and turned under in fall. Fertilize before each crop is sown and give the ryegrass two or three light applications of fertilizer during the summer fall. If you begin this schedule in the fall, you will turn under two crops of winter rye and two of ryegrass before you sow your permanent lawn two years later. If you begin in spring, you will turn under one crop of winter rye and two of ryegrass before you sow your permanent lawn about a year and a half later. These three or four crops will benefit your soil almost beyond recognition. They will give it a new look.