September 2025 CONCORD GARDEN CLUB Updates & Events
- Jenny Robson - Communications
- Aug 28
- 6 min read
welcome to
garden club '25-'26!
Hope you had a great summer and are ready for a year of fun activities and learning together. To get things started, we're having a Fall 2025 kickoff party!
MEMBER SOCIAL EVENT - Note new date
now being held Friday, Sept. 19th
You won't want to miss this wonderful event!! Please join us for wine, soft drinks and snacks as we catch up with each other about our summer activities and kick off the Garden Club’s 101st year.
NOTICE: CHANGE OF DATE!!!
This event is now being held on Friday, September 19th, 5-7:00pm
77 Stickney Hill Road, Concord --
Diane Wilson's home
Please RSVP ASAP!
(Members only)
president's message:
Welcome back to the new year of Garden Club. We are starting out with a great leadership team and strong finances and I’m looking forward to a wonderful schedule of programs and events. If you missed our annual meeting in June, you can read the reports summarizing the work of our committees here.
The full schedule for the year should be posted on the website shortly; remember most programs are described in the Members Only area and you can access them with the password BlackEyedSusan! Please take a look and especially RSVP for our fall kick off party being held this year on September 19 from 5 to 7. It would be great if members whose last names begin A-L could bring a light appetizer and those whose last names begin M-Z bring a bottle of wine or soda.
This is my last year as President and my goal for the year is to bring in 5 to 10 new members. If you have friends or neighbors newly retired or looking to meet new people, I hope you will tell them about Garden Club and show them the new member application on the website. If you’d like to bring a prospective member to the party on September 19, please get in touch with me or Jeanie West and let us know.
See you on the 19th --
Gena Cohen Moses
2025-26 meeting schedule
The coming year's meeting schedule is packed with interesting, informative and entertaining meetings, with topics ranging from the hidden meaning of flowers in artworks to how to raise healthier houseplants. Check out the lineup here.
community service
Community Service Committee members met monthly over the summer months to keep our White's Park Peace Pole Garden in good shape. It's looking pretty good! Gardeners should plan on one more maintenance gathering for fall cleanup - date TBD, so watch your emails.
We'll also have our annual Committee meeting in October, so watch your email for that date too. At that meeting we'll discuss plans for the coming year and brainstorm civic projects we can donate funds to in 2026. Start coming up with ideas!
learning opportunities
From UNH Extension:
Composting How & Why?
Saturday, September 6th 9:30-11:00am
Registration Link:
Gardens in the Fall: Season Extension and Fall Planting
Saturday, October 4th 9:30-11:00am
Registration Link:
Also, back by popular demand there will be a second
Senior Garden Tour and Potting Activity
Tuesday, September 15th from 10-11:30
(rain date: 9/16).
We will be potting fall Mums for all participants to take home. This is a FREE event but does require registration with a cap at 40 participants.
Registration link:
These classes will be held at NH Audubon's Massabesic Center, 26 Audubon Way in Auburn, NH. The Demonstration & Teaching Garden Workshops at NH Audubon's Massabesic Center are in partnership with the UNH Cooperative Extension.
september garden chores
From Margaret Roach/New York Times
AS YOU BEGIN to wind down and clean up, take notes of what worked and didn’t. Mark areas that would have been easier to maintain with a workhorse groundcover in place, for instance, or areas where more bulbs might fit.
TREES & SHRUBS
BE SURE TO WATER trees and shrubs now through hard frost, so that they enter dormancy in a well-hydrated state. Evergreens (needled ones and broadleaf types like rhododendron, too) are particularly vulnerable to desiccation and winterburn if not well watered before the cold and winds set in.
DON’T PANIC IF EVERGREENS start to show some browning or yellowing of needles this month and next. The oldest, innermost needles typically shed after a few years on the tree.
HOPEFULLY YOU STOPPED FEEDING woody plants in July or August. Promoting more soft growth after July-ish isn’t good; time for them to start moving toward the hardening-off phase of their cycle. No more eats till earliest spring.
ALWAYS BE on the lookout for dead, damaged, diseased wood in trees and shrubs and prune them out as discovered. Ditto with suckers and water sprouts. No hard pruning now, though; too late to risk encouraging regrowth.
VEGETABLE, FRUIT & HERBS
AS VEGETABLE PLANTS (and annual flowers) fade, pull them to get a start on garden cleanup. Before composting the remains, cut them up a bit with a pruning shears or shred, to speed decomposition.
PARSLEY AND CHIVES can be potted up and brought indoors for offseason use, or freeze some (or give the plants some extra protection and keep harvesting from the garden). A few garlic cloves in a pot will yield a supply of chive-like (but spicier) garlic greens all winter for garnish. Sow seeds of bush basil in a pot, too, and grow on a very sunny windowsill if you are a really determined type.
IF NEXT YEAR’S GARDEN plans include a patch of strawberries or asparagus, do the tilling and soil preparation now so the bare-root plants ordered over the winter can be planted extra early come spring.
AS AREAS COME EMPTY from harvest, build vegetable-garden soil by sowing cover crops: medium red clover if you get right to it, or perhaps winter rye if you don’t do some areas till mid-fall. These “green manures” will be turned under to improve soil tilth and fertility.
IF YOU HARVESTED YOUR own garlic, save the best heads with the biggest cloves for replanting later this month or next (about a month before frost is in the ground). Otherwise, order bulbs now. Prepare a sunny spot, and plant each clove 1-2 inches deep and 6 inches apart in the row, with about 12 inches between rows. Green growth will happen this fall, which is great; don’t panic. It’s a hardy thing.
FLOWER GARDEN
DON’T DEADHEAD FADED perennials, biennials and annuals if you want to collect seed (non-hybrids only) or plan to let some self-sow. Nicotiana, annual poppies, larkspur, clary sage and many others fall into this leave-alone group. So do plants with showy or bird-friendly seedheads, like coneflowers, some sedums, clematis and grasses.
DAYLILIES can be dug and divided as they complete their bloom cycle, right into fall, if needed.
PEONIES are best divided and transplanted in late August through September, if they need it. Remember with these fussy guys that “eyes” must not be buried more than an inch or two beneath the soil surface. Want more peonies? Now’s the time to order.
MANY POPULAR ANNUALS can be overwintered as young plants if you take and root cuttings now rather than try to nurse along leggy older specimens. Geraniums, coleus, wax begonias, even impatiens (to name just a few common ones), if grown in good light indoors and kept pinched and bushy, will yield another generation of cuttings for next spring’s transplants. Probably best to expend this effort and space on things you really treasure—an unusual form of something, not the garden variety.
IF TUBEROUS BEGONIAS like ‘Bonfire’ or ‘Bellfire’ are starting to go slack, let them dry off and rest early, or they will rot. This ultra-wet season was too much for mine, which have been under cover in the garage drying for weeks now.
ORDER BULBS promptly (see Sources), and plant as they arrive (lilies most urgently). Remember our “early, middle, late” mantra when ordering, for a prolonged show. Many bulb questions answered here.
PREPARE NEW beds for fall planting by smothering grass or weeds with layers of recycled corrugated cardboard or thick layers of newspaper, then put mulch on top.
RE-EDGE BEDS to make a clean line and define them. Don’t let them get overrun just because summer’s wound down. A clean edge makes a big difference.
HOUSEPLANTS
REST AMARYLLIS BULBS by putting them in a dry, dark place where they will have no water at all for a couple of months. I put mine in a little-used closet.
IF HOUSEPLANTS NEED repotting, do it before they come inside later this month (less messy than in the house!). Don’t step up more than an inch (on small pots) or a couple (on large ones). Most plants don’t like to swim in their containers.
LAWNS
MID-AUGUST TO MID-SEPTEMBER is prime lawn-renovation and planting time in the North. Have you reseeded yet?
DON’T BAG OR RAKE clippings; let them lie on the lawn to return Nitrogen to the soil, right through the last mowing in late autumn.
COMPOST HEAP & MULCH
ORDER A SUPPLY of bulk mulch, which is cheaper than the packaged kind and also eliminates the waste of all those heavyweight plastic bags. Many local nurseries deliver. Top up mulch in all garden beds as they get cleaned up gradually in fall.
DON’T LET THE HEAP dry out completely, or it will not “cook.” Turning it to aerate will also hasten decomposition, but things will rot eventually even if not turned. I extract more finished material and screen it each fall, to work into the gardens (and make more room for incoming fresh debris).
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