Master gardeners on hand at Chenango County Fair

NORWICH – Has your garden gone bare? Nothing left to grow and bloom in the final month of summer?

It’s never too late to get started on next year’s August blooming garden, and a conversation with master gardener Donna Schindler can help you plant the right varieties.

Schindler and fellow master gardener John Farran, both of Oxford, were on hand at the Chenango County Fair this week to educate the public on all aspects of flower and vegetable gardening. On display were multiple varieties of indoor and outdoor plants, as well as information about becoming a master gardener, growing plants that remove air-borne pollutants and eradicating your garden from the hungry, Japanese beetle.

Schindler said the following plants bloom in August: gooseneck loosestrife, yarrow “the Pearl,” black eye Susan’s, phlox “Pinks,” purple cone flowers, day lilies, Turk’s Cap Asiatic lilies (also known as the Tiger Lilly,) and Japanese anemones. Butterfly bushes are also beginning to enhance foundation and other landscaping plantings about now, and Schindler suggests planting annual sun flowers and oriental grasses and mums to have color well into the fall.