• Home
  • Blog
  • Meet Jennifer
    • Meet Jennifer Howard
    • Work With Me
    • Disclosure + Privacy
    • Contact
  • Shop
  • Nav Social Icons

  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Shop My Favorites
  • DECORATING
    • Decorating Tips & Tricks
    • DIY Decorating Projects
    • High End Dupes
    • Thrifting
    • Home Tours
    • Wreaths
    • Spring & Easter Ideas and Projects
    • Summer Decorating and Projects
    • Fall Decorating Ideas & Projects
    • Christmas Decorating Ideas & Projects
    • Shopping
  • GARDENING
    • Flower Gardening
    • Gardening Project Ideas
    • Vegetable Gardening
  • LIFESTYLE
    • Weekly Rewind
    • Recipes
    • Around New England
    • Visiting Magnolia
  • Meet Jennifer
    • Work With Me
    • Contact
    • Disclosure + Privacy
  • Mobile Menu Widgets

Cottage On Bunker Hill

Cottage On Bunker Hill

Home & Garden in New England

  • LIFESTYLE
    • Weekly Rewind
    • Recipes
    • Around New England
    • Visiting Magnolia
  • DECORATING
    • High End Dupes
    • Decorating Tips & Tricks
    • DIY Decorating Projects
    • Thrifting
    • Wreaths
    • Shopping
    • Home Tours
    • Spring & Easter Ideas and Projects
    • Summer Decorating and Projects
    • Fall Decorating Ideas & Projects
    • Christmas Decorating Ideas & Projects
  • GARDENING
    • Flower Gardening
    • Gardening Project Ideas
    • Vegetable Gardening
    • Grow With Me Gardening Series
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Meet Jennifer
    • Meet Jennifer Howard
    • Work With Me
    • Disclosure + Privacy
    • Contact
  • Shop

October in the Garden

In: Flower Gardening, GARDENING, Grow With Me Gardening Series

The mild New England weather has gifted us with an extended growing season. Here is my final tour of this year’s garden.

End of the Season Garden Tour

Well, what a strange trip it’s been this year!! We started off with a very cold Spring that was followed by the hottest, driest Summer that I can remember. There was definitely more stress than normal on my plants this year with the drought conditions here in coastal New Hampshire.

The rain in September was a welcome gift and really jumpstarted the growth in my cutting garden…better late than never I guess!

Here is the last tour of my gardens for this year…and now I have to start planning for next year.

Grow With Me Gardening Series

This is part of the Grow With Me Gardening Series here at Cottage On Bunker Hill. I want to teach you ways of starting, maintaining, and enjoying gardening. I will share all the tips & tricks that I have learned over the years growing both vegetable and flower gardens here in the Northeast.


Dahlias

Well, I can honestly say I had a super disappointing year with my dahlias!! I was so excited in the Spring when I planted them…but the drought and hot weather really put a damper on their growth through the Summer months.

Let me show you the saddest one to get it out of the way!

small dahlia plant

This was probably the dahlia I was most looking forward to seeing flower this Fall. As you can see the plant didn’t get much bigger than the plant marker!! This one did get munched on very early in the season by a bunny but never really took off after that.

cafe au lait rose dahlia in bloom
Cafe au Lait Rose

Right next to that sorry-sack dahlia is this beauty!! What you can’t tell is this entire plant is only a little over a foot tall and I have no idea why the weight of the flower hasn’t toppled the little stem over!!


garden bed full of morning glories

Over in the cut flower garden is where I planted about 8 different dahlia tubers. This was the dahlia flower bed at the beginning of August. The plants were so small!

dahlia garden bed

Only a couple of the plants are flowering. The other plants are healthy with foliage but didn’t produce any flowers. I’ll dig the tubers up once we have a freeze to store for next year.

Having such a dry Summer is what I’m sure has caused the lack of growth and flowers. I watered sparingly because we are on well water and were being mindful of water use.

melody dora dahlia
purple fox dahlia
Melody Dora | Purple Fox

Zinnias in the Fall

zinnias with foliage in background

Now, on the other hand, my zinnia patch was living its best life this Fall!! Once we started getting more rain the plants shot up. Now some of the stems are well over 5 feet in height!!

blue sky and flowers

The flower heads have been getting bigger and bigger as the season goes on too. You can see more about the specific varieties that I grew this year and some hints here.

zinnia pinterest image

Guide to Growing Zinnias

my best tips

Zinnias are one of the easiest flowers to grow from seed and come in so many colors and varieties! Check Out My Zinnia Growing Guide

    beranry's giant wine zinnia

    This Bernary’s Giant Wine flower was as big as my palm!! The Bernary’s series of zinnias are some of my favorites to grow!

    Here we are at the end of October and I just went outside and there are loads of fresh flowers that just opened!

    bumblebee on zinnia

    One of my favorites in my cutting garden this year was these Aztec zinnias. They have petite flowers and are low-growing so would be perfect for a border.

    Fall Vegetable Harvest

    flowers and carrots on counter

    This year I planted celery plants! I’ve never grown it in my garden before but it was easy and looks nice in the garden bed.

    I used the fresh celery and the “short & sweet” carrots that I harvested to make soup. What a difference freshly harvested vegetables make flavorwise!

    celery in a strainer

    Another fun plant that I grew this year was artichokes. I didn’t expect any flowers since they don’t usually flower until their second year.

    They are an annual plant up here in the north but I am thinking of overwintering the 2 plants that I have. While researching I came across this helpful article on artichokes and I think I’m going to try and store my plants in the basement for the winter.

    The foliage of the artichoke looked fantastic in my mixed flower bed! Having a few mixed raised beds was one of my favorite parts of my garden this year.

    I mixed flowers, vegetables, and herbs in a few of my beds and it really gave my garden an English cottage garden feel…you should try it next year!

    What a difference a month makes!! If you asked me in September I would have said that the bottleneck gourds were a bust. But in October they started to grow. The picture on the left is from the beginning of the month and the one on the right is from today!

    This is my second year growing them. My goal is to bring in the gourds to dry out and use as birdhouses or decorations for next Fall. Let’s see how it goes…last year’s turned into a fuzzy science project!!


    More Fall Flowers

    You should definitely add calendula to your garden next year! These were started by direct seeding and have been flowering all Summer long!

    This variety is called Ivory Princess.

    Celosia

    celosia flowers

    There are so many varieties of celosia that you can grow and it is one of the most interesting-looking flowers to add to your cutting garden.

    Over the past two years, I have grown a few varieties but this Celosia Kurume ‘Corona’ with its cherry and yellow bi-color flowers is really a neat one to add to your garden.

    Another plus to growing celosia is how easy it is to save the seeds to use for next year’s garden! Except for the ‘Corona’ variety, all my other celosia was started from seeds I had saved.

    celosia flower with seeds

    The seeds start to form at the end of the growing season and look just like big poppy seeds. All you have to do is run your nail down the stem and the seeds will fall right off. Store them in an envelope in a cool place for the winter. Once the risk of frost has passed you can start them right in the garden.

    A few other favorites in the October garden

    Another garden late bloom was my double-click cosmos flowers.

    Strawflowers are an easy-to-grow annual flower to add to your cut flower garden. They make the perfect dried flower to add to your wreaths too.

    dried sunflowers

    The sunflowers have long gone by but I leave them out in the garden so the birds can eat the seeds.

    Enjoying the last few fresh-cut bouquets of the season. The colors always seem more vibrant as the garden is winding down…like they are putting on one final show!

    fall garden wreath

    Using a few flowers that I gathered from my Fall garden I made the prettiest wreath.

    diy garden wreath
    close up of garden wreath
    maple tree foliage and arden

    Another gardening season is winding down, just enjoying the final week or two before we have a frost here. Next, it will be putting the garden to bed and cleaning everything up for another year… and then I’ll spend the winter planning for next year.

    My Garden Tours
    perennial garden with sunset
    SUMMER PERENNIAL GARDEN TOUR
    cottage garden
    COTTAGE GARDEN TOUR
    SPRING GARDEN TOUR
    dahlia in bloom
    10 FLOWERS TO GROW

    • Share on Facebook Share on Facebook
    • Share on Pinterest Share on Pinterest
    • Share via Email Share via Email

    Jennifer Howard

    cottage on bunker hill

    Thanks for stopping by today! Being able to share my projects, DIYs, and decorating ideas with you is amazing. Leave a comment below; I love hearing from you! Feel free to drop me a note here if you have any questions.

    Get to know Jennifer.

    • Visit Facebook account (opens in a new tab)
    • Visit Instagram account (opens in a new tab)
    • Visit Pinterest account (opens in a new tab)
    • Visit YouTube account (opens in a new tab)

    By: Jennifer Howard · In: Flower Gardening, GARDENING, Grow With Me Gardening Series · Tagged: gardening

    you’ll also love

    A Guide to Growing Zinnias: Best Varieties & Care Tips
    Daylilies floweringSummer Perennial Garden Tour
    New England Garden Tour (May & June)

    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Camille says

      October 31, 2022 at 8:02 am

      Sounds amazing, thanks for sharing:)

      Reply
    2. Kim | Shiplap and Shells says

      October 29, 2022 at 4:53 pm

      Your October garden is so beautiful Jennifer. I will surely miss the dahlias, zinnias, and cosmos but looking forward to planning for next year.

      Reply
    3. Tammy says

      October 28, 2022 at 12:12 pm

      Here it is October and your garden still looks amazing. Such lovely photos, Jennifer. I can see you with a cup of coffee walking around the garden in the morning. It looks so tranquil.

      Reply

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    Recipe Rating




    Next Post >

    Fall in New England

    Primary Sidebar

    Search

    Catagories

    Behind the blog

    Behind the blog
    Meet Jennifer

    Hey friends, I'm so glad you are here! I'm a life-long New England gal who started Cottage On Bunker Hill as a hub to share all my DIYs, decorating ideas, budget shopping ideas and so much more!!

    Read More

    Stay Connected!

    Get The Latest

    See Me In The October Issue!!

    Footer

    Categories

    Archives

     •••Cottage on Bunker Hill does not accept guest posts and I only link to sites that I find myself. No need to email me with requests•••

    COPYRIGHT CONTENT PERMISSION

    All images and tutorials on this blog are copyrighted material.

    I’m happy to allow you to use ONE photo with appropriate credit and link back to cottageonbunkerhill.com

    Please contact me if you would like to use any media, tutorials, or ideas from this blog.  Contact Jennifer via email: jennifer@cottageonbunkerhill.com

    FEEL FREE TO PIN AWAY! IT’S APPRECIATED!

    Cottage On Bunker Hill is a participant in several affiliate programs including the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. For more information, see full disclosure statement (here)

    Copyright © 2023 · Theme by 17th Avenue

    We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.Ok