The Beginner's Garden, Phase 6

Do not panic and ask yourself what you have done wrong when you see a few yellow leaves or browning stalks in your garden. You can snip them off if you like. As the days become shorter, your perennial plants will begin to shut down for the winter. The life in them will shrink back to the roots and crown. (The crown is the small part of the plant just above the roots, but above the ground.) They'll be back next year unless someone steps on the crown.

Your annual plants will fulfill their destiny by going to seed. They sacrifice themselves for the good of the species.

You may notice that the mulch for which you paid good money has begun to disappear. This is, surprisingly, a good thing. The helpful decomposers of the earth, microorganisms and macroorganisms like worms, have broken the mulch down and made the nutrients in it available to the plant roots. If you want to give your plants extra protection through the winter, you can buy still more mulch. Or you can wait till spring.

Browse through spring bulbs on the Web. You can order now for planting in October, the right time in most parts of North America. The easiest bulbs to grow are grape hyacinths (muscari in Latin) and daffodils (narcissi). You can give tulips a try if your soil is well drained. Any of these bulbs can go in the ground around or in front of your perennials. The rule of thumb is to plant them three times as deep as they are tall, so about 6 inches down for daffs, 9 inches for tulips. The only tricky part is figuring out which way on the bulb is up. Grape hyacinths and daffodils have hairy little roots on the bottom. Tulips have a pointed top and wider bottom. Two particularly wonderful and cheering daffodils are Tete a Tete and February Gold. These are miniatures that pop up very early in spring, as you might imagine from the February part of the name.