Gardening Resources

Preparing for Fall

• Stop fertilizing your gardens. While annuals in containers may still require food, perennials need to harden off, slow down, to get ready for the winter.
• Good long soakings of your garden are still beneficial and recommended (preferable to quick little drinks). However, allow your soils to dry out some in between waterings. You do not want the ground to become water logged as plants can rot in the freeze/thaw cycles that begin shortly.
• Create a seasonal switch out of your containers into a fall bounty of colors with cold tolerant annuals, stems and grasses.
• Install spring flowering bulbs (tulips, daffodils, alliums and the like) for early spring color. Your pay off next spring is definitely worth the small effort in the fall. Sprinkle the ground with cayenne pepper to discourage foraging squirrels.

• Fall can be a wonderful time to create new beds or amend your existing gardens soils. Everyone is always so busy in the spring that fall is a wonderful time for creating. It is also timely for soil prep as you can see where the perennials are and the soil is dry and workable now when many times it is too wet to work in the spring. Tilling in compost (with all sorts of beneficials) is preferable to peat moss (which holds no nutrient value and may have been harvested improperly from peat bogs).
• Take notes/pictures on what you may want to repeat next year and jot down ideas of what you wish to avoid.
• Fall is the perfect time for planting, get through some of your outdoor environment goals and then you can hit the ground running in the spring. Perennials can be installed as late as mid October some years, while trees and shrubs have been known to go into the ground in December! Ask your local nursery professional to assist you in understanding that variable time frame.