Normally, I feel a little blue when I start seeing long shadows in August and realize summer’s coming to an end. This year, though, I’m kind of relieved. Even though the recent rains have been a big relief from all the heat and drought, it’s been a real scorched-earth summer that has, at least for me, made gardening more of a chore than a joy.

Mostly, I’ve just been trying to keep everything alive, which has pretty much led to a full-fledged case of the gardening blahs. If you’re feeling this way, too, it’s fine if we all skip doing stuff like dividing perennials and putting in new plants this fall. But there are few tasks we should try to buck up and do in the next couple of months.

Keep pulling weeds. Those suckers will be much worse next spring if you let them hang around all winter. Remove spent annuals, vegetables, and any plants that seem diseased from the garden. And, as always, keep watering. If it doesn’t rain, give flowers, shrubs, and trees and inch of water a week right up until it gets so cold you need to put the hose away and shut off your outside spigot. Plants that have been around awhile longer have stronger root systems and can go more than a week without a drink. That’s especially true for many drought-tolerant perennials, including globe thistle (Echinops ritro), blazingstar (Liatris sp.), sea holly (Eryngium spp.), Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia), butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa), black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia fulgida), stonecrop (Sedum spectabile), veronica (Veronica spp.), bee balm (Monarda didyma) and blanket flower (Gaillardia aristata).

Wait! I know what you’re thinking. “Why did she go and use all those Latin names in a column that’s supposed to be for everyday gardeners?” Well, the truth is, I used to think that using Latin names for plants was kind of like being a wine snob or putting “haricot verts” on the menu instead of just calling them what they are, green beans. But I looked into it, and there’s actually a good reason for knowing the Latin names (or botanical names, as they are called) of plants.

As it turns out, the common names we have for plants around here aren’t the same as common names in, say, Indiana, let alone England. We’re going around calling something a “lamb’s ear” while someone 1,600 miles away is looking at the same plant and calling it a “bunny’s tongue” or a “monkey’s butt.” If you use the Latin name, everybody’s on the same page and that’s a great help when you’re doing something like ordering from a catalog or looking for something specific at a garden center. So try, every now and then, to memorize a botanical name or two. Just don’t turn into the super annoying person (we all know someone like this) who uses only Latin names when they know darn well that everyone around them is completely confused about what they’re talking about.

But I digress. Back to fall gardening. Even if you’ve been tending your plants all year, they’re bound to be looking pretty worn out by now. If you’re up for it, there are several things you can do to breathe some life back into your garden for these last few months before the snow flies. Now, for instance, is a good time to plant some fall-bloomers like asters (Aster spp.). New England aster (Aster novae-angliae) and New York aster (Aster novi-belgii) are both great, hardy choices. Sky-blue aster (Aster oolentangiensis), which are native to Minnesota, are beauties, too. There is also the calico aster (Aster lateriflorus), which, interestingly enough, is described on a University of Minnesota Extension native plant list as having “blossoms once used to treat insanity.”

And, of course you’ll find crysanthemums (Chrysanthemum spp.) just about everywhere you look. Beware when buying mums, though. They’re easy to grow, but many that are sold in supermarkets and garden centers aren’t hardy in our Zone 4 climate and won’t survive the winter. If you’re searching for mums you can count on, check out this article on the Extension website for more information on the many reliably hardy mums the U has introduced over the years (http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/DG7068.html).

Though some people think they’re strange, I like the way ornamental cabbage and flowering kale look in a fall garden. And they’ll hold their own up right until the first hard frost. Some nurseries and garden centers sell annuals this time of year that will do well in cool weather, such as snapdragons (Antirrhinum majus), pansies (Viola tricolor) and English primroses (Primula vulgaris). These can be plopped in here and there where you feel like you need a bit of color. It’s probably time to say goodbye to those potted petunias, too.