Fall Garden Cleanup & Pond Makeover in Zone 6A

Welcome back to our garden in Zone 6A, Upstate New York—where the weather does not care about your filming schedule and fall gardening happens whether you’re ready or not.

Today’s project is a major seasonal transition around our pondless waterfall. We’re pulling out annuals, evaluating what actually performed well, transplanting shrubs, and reworking the design to set this space up for long-term success. It’s rainy, muddy, and very much real life—which pretty much sums up fall gardening when you work full-time jobs and garden on weekends.

Removing Annuals: Performance vs. Preference

Fall is one of our favorite times to garden because it forces honesty. When you pull plants out of the ground, you really see what worked—and what just looked good in theory.

Annuals We’re Removing

We pulled everything around the pond, including:

• SunPatiens
• Meteor Shower® Verbena
• Verbena bonariensis (grown from seed)
• Sweet potato vine
• Superunia Mini Vista® Indigo
• Bright Lights® Osteospermum
• Lavender Lace® Cuphea

By the end, it was officially a naked pond—and honestly, we love the breathing room.

Meteor Shower® Verbena vs. Verbena bonariensis

This was a season-long comparison:

• Meteor Shower® Verbena (sterile)
  • Blooms nonstop
  • Easy to pull (tiny roots)
  • Will not reseed
• Verbena bonariensis (from seed)
  • Taller, airier
  • Still blooming late into fall
  • Reseeds aggressively (grow it once, get it forever)

👉 If you want control, go sterile. If you want a self-sustaining pollinator party, let it reseed.

Sweet Potato Vine: Surprisingly Impressive

We tried Sweet Caroline® ‘Sweetheart Shadow Storm’, and wow—those roots were no joke.

Our take:

• Slow to get started
• Incredible coverage once established
• Massive root system
• Slightly smothered slower growers nearby

⭐ 9/10 for performance (would be a 10 if it filled in faster)

Fall Is Weed Season (Yes, Really)

One quick reminder: fall is when weeds really set their roots. Pulling them now saves you a lot of work in spring. If you see them—deal with them.

Pond Gardening Lessons We Learned the Hard Way

This was the first full season with this pondless waterfall, and we learned a lot.

What Worked

• Rocks in the garden → instant structure
• Repeating plants instead of mixing everything
• Cuphea near the pond (didn’t mind the moisture at all)
• Iris in the water (lasted longer than the one in the ground)

What Didn’t

• Too many colors and textures at once
• Plants sitting in the water instead of beside it
• Some annual grasses and coleus that struggled all season

Sometimes “more is more” just… isn’t.

Shrub Transplanting & Design Reset

We made a big decision up top:
👉 Dog hobble out, Oakleaf hydrangea in.

Why We Chose Oakleaf Hydrangea (‘Gatsby Gal®’)

• Blooms on old wood (no pruning stress)
• Extremely shade tolerant
• Low maintenance
• Beautiful fall color
• Perfect for a future tree canopy

This dwarf variety stays around 3x3 feet, so it can arch gently over the waterfall without crowding the fence.

We’re intentionally moving toward a cleaner, more monoculture look here—and it already feels calmer.

Critters, Moss, and Real Garden Life

Between the moisture from the pond and the dense planting, this space became a critter hotel this season. Frogs? Great. Hawks and owls? Welcome. Legless surprises? Hard pass.

Removing dense annuals helps:

• Reduce hiding spots
• Improve airflow
• Make the space feel lighter and safer to work in

(If you have humane legless-critter deterrents, drop them in the comments—we’re listening.)

Why We Love Fall Gardening (Even in the Rain)

Fall gardening isn’t about instant gratification. It’s about:

• Making space
• Setting structure
• Letting the garden breathe
• Learning what actually worked

We didn’t add fertilizer.
We didn’t baby anything.
We worked with the weather we had.

That’s real Zone 6A gardening.

What’s Coming Next

• Putting the pondless waterfall to sleep
• Protecting marginal hydrangeas for better blooms
• More fall pruning and training
• Watching this space evolve with fewer plants—and better ones

If you want to see how this area evolved from a limelight hydrangea hedge → blank slate → mixed border, be sure to check out the related video linked here.

Thanks for growing with us 🌿

‍