The annual Fall Garden Festival is slated for Saturday and Sunday at the City Park Botanical Gardens.

Pansy, a cool-season bedding plant in Louisiana, prefers sun to part sun.

Violas, like other cool-season bedding plants, bloom best with at least six hours of sun.  

 Snapdragons are a star of the cool-season garden.

The annual Fall Garden Festival is slated for Saturday and Sunday at the City Park Botanical Gardens.

The Fall Garden Festival is this weekend in the New Orleans Botanical Garden in City Park, and I’m so excited.

Thousands of gardeners attend each year to see educational exhibits throughout the Botanical Garden created by area nurseries, landscape architects, plant societies, tree and horticultural service companies and government agencies. Many are elaborately landscaped with flowering plants, fountains, works of art and garden accessories.

Pansy, a cool-season bedding plant in Louisiana, prefers sun to part sun.

Sales are a big part of the show as well. Plants, tools, garden furniture, pots, accessories and artwork are among the wares. Plants for sale will include roses, bedding plants, bromeliads, orchids, tropical foliage, herbs, perennials, butterfly plants and native plants. The Botanical Garden has been propagating many of the plants in its collection and will also have a large variety of plants for sale.

In addition, there are children’s activities, music, arts and crafts, and food.

Education is an important part of the festival. There are lots of experts in the various booths and exhibits you can talk to and learn about how to grow ornamentals, vegetables and herbs in our area.

Violas, like other cool-season bedding plants, bloom best with at least six hours of sun.  

A series of free lectures will take place in the Garden Study Center.  

As always, specialists with the LSU AgCenter will be on hand at the Plant Health Clinic to answer gardening pest-control questions. You can bring plants or samples with cultural, insect or disease problems and weeds for identification. LSU AgCenter experts will diagnose the problems and recommend how to deal with them.

It will be a beautiful weekend to spend time outside.

 Snapdragons are a star of the cool-season garden.

It will inspire you, educate you and delight you with its displays, plants and garden products for sale and friendly exhibitors.

While you're there, it's a good time to consider your cool-season beds. Here's what you need to know.

EVALUATE BEDS: Now is the time to evaluate beds of warm-season plants. Clean out those that are past their prime and no longer attractive (they make a great addition to compost piles).

Some warm-season bedding plants may still be hanging in there, but it’s best to get your cool-season color in by early December.

As a result, on occasion, we find ourselves pulling up plants that are still blooming to make way for the new planting. This is difficult for some gardeners. But consider — those tender bedding plants will languish and look terrible all during the cold weather and generally die with the first heavy freezes. Cool-season bedding plants will provide color from fall to spring.

SEEDS OR TRANSPLANTS: In addition to the garden show, nurseries and garden centers offer a wide selection of cool-season bedding plants, and you can choose between transplants or seeds. Because they are quick, easy and give instant results, most gardeners favor the use of transplants.

However, some cool-season bedding plants are easy to grow from seed and may be planted now directly into beds where they will grow, including alyssum, Johnny-jump-up, blue bonnets, calendula, annual phlox and nasturtium. Sweet peas, larkspur and poppies prefer to be direct seeded where they will grow as they resent transplanting. Sow seeds of these plants now through November.

Plant transplants into sunny, well-prepared bed, being careful to plant them at the same depth they were growing in the cell pack or pot. Space them properly. It’s a good idea to water in newly planted transplants with a soluble fertilizer to get them off to a good start.

SHAPES AND COLORS: Cool-season flowers come in a variety of shapes and sizes, from the ground hugging alyssum and lobelia to the towering hollyhocks and delphiniums. Plant heights should be considered when selecting and placing bedding plants into the landscape.

Select cool-season bedding plants so that the colors are harmonious. Colors should be grouped in masses or drifts, and try not to use too many different colors in the same bed.

Cool-season bedding plants will bloom best in locations that receive six hours or more of direct sun. Pansy, viola, forget-me-not, lobelia and nicotiana are probably the best choices for partially shady areas. Even they will not perform well in heavy shade.

Remember, the cold weather of winter will not bother these plants. Cool-season bedding plants can be planted as late as February or March, but those planted in the fall are always the most spectacular in the spring.

There are lots of cool season flowers that can be planted into the garden now. Check nurseries and garden centers for transplants or seeds of the following:

WHAT: Exhibits on landscaping with flowering plants and vendors of plants, tools, garden furniture, pots, accessories and artwork and more, along with educational lectures

WHERE: New Orleans Botanical Garden in City Park

WHEN: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday

ADMISSION: $12 adults; $6 for children ages 5-12. Free for ages 4 and under and Friends of City Park

October is a great time to plant cool-season vegetables into your garden. They include beet, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrot, caul…

Garden columnist Dan Gill answers readers' questions each week. To send a question, email Gill at gnogardening@agcenter.lsu.edu.

Cool fronts in September don’t occur every year, but I sure did enjoy the milder morning temperatures and lower humidity provided by the front…

Dan Gill is a retired consumer horticulture specialist with the LSU AgCenter. He hosts the “Garden Show” on WWL-AM Saturdays at 9 a.m. Email gardening questions to gnogardening@agcenter.lsu.edu.

“One of the most delightful things about a garden is the anticipation it provides.”

W. E. Johns, garden writer

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.

News Tips: newstips@theadvocate.com

Other questions: subscriberservices@theadvocate.com