Sept.: Fall is staggering in

Weeks of brilliant color are ahead, and it is time to think about your spring garden.

Bulbs, those buried treasures, are the easiest and most diverse way to add excitement to your spring garden. Captivating color, fragrance and a wide range of varieties are their trademark. Many bulbs grow and bloom in early spring, offering the first important display of color in your garden against a background of soft spring greens. Bulbs fill gaps in design and are "effortless serving."

Imagine brilliant colored, longlasting Darwin hybrid tulips among your perennials — what a great spring delight! Anemone blanda with hyacinths, Scilla siberica with daffodil "Tete-a-Tete," grape hyacinths with midseason tulips or daffodils are great combinations you will enjoy over a long period. Daffodils, crocus, galanthus and iris reticulate can be planted soon. Bulbs look great when planted in drifts — but you do need more than a few bulbs for this effect.

Tomaccio — a sweet raisin tomato —is a new, gourmet cherry tomato already popular in France and Germany. It will be introduced to the U.S. market in spring 2010. This vigorous tomato was developed over 12 years with the goal to develop a sweet cherry tomato that can be easily dried. I have tested several plants this summer — they are full of fruit now, each cluster bearing

The Night Blooming Cereus blooms once a season at night. 10-12 tomatoes, firm texture, smooth skin, juicy, flavorful and fit for a seed catalog's photo shoot. Keep this superstar in mind for next year's garden.

A horticultural tidbit: Spiraea First Editions Superstar — this dwarf spiraea is a show-stopper with its more compact form, spectacular three-season appeal and minimal

pruning requirements. New leaves start out scarlet red, turning dark green and changing to a brilliant bronze color in the fall. Pink blossoms cover the plant all summer long. A sure winner in the landscape, look for it in spring 2010.

What to do now in your spare time:

Perennial maintenance: cut

back plants that are diseased, looking past their prime, or those that may become "weeds" if they self-seed freely. Do not cut back ornamental grasses until March. Fall is a great time to divide and replant overgrown perennials such as Siberian iris, bearded iris and daylilies. After Labor Day, divide and transplant peonies and give roses their third and final feeding of the season.

It's time for some houseplants that enjoyed the summer outdoors to return inside. Christmas cactus and epiphyllum may be left out until just before the first frost. And if your amaryllis took a vacation in your garden, stop watering them now. The bulbs need a rest before transplanting and re- blooming.

One of my most treasured plants is an epiphyllum oxypetalum (Queen of the Night). A single, fragrant, beautiful 5- to 7- inch cup-shaped blossom opens in the late evening and closes in the morning. This magnificent creation has a heady, intoxicating fragrance and is rare; it only blooms once, at night. You will see me outside at 2 a.m. with flashlight and camera to capture the image of this elusive blossom.

The crape myrtle blossoms are in full, deep rose bloom and soon the leaves will begin to turn coppery red to welcome fall, which once again is catching me unaware.

The first turning leaves are insignificant, not signaling the tree's desire to close shop for the winter, but soon cooler nights will bring on spectacular, beautiful, gold- and orange-tinted leaves. Enjoy this beautiful season.

"Gardening is a kind of disease. It infects you, you cannot escape it. When you go visiting, your eyes rove about the garden; you interrupt the serious cocktail drinking because of an irresistible impulse to get up and pull a weed." Lewis Gannit

Gotti Kelley, past president of the Navesink Garden Club, also serves on the Board of the Garden Club of New Jersey.