Autumn Gardening

Part of your autumn gardening should include some of the following jobs to help you get ready for the spring growing season. Autumn gardening may also include doing some fall planting because it gives plants enough time to get established with their roots before the first frost comes.

Some of the early fall chores may include planting some of the following: your spring bulbs, except your tulips, in flower beds; some winter color into containers or hanging baskets; sweet peas for any early showing in the spring; you can also sow wallflowers for climbing on fences and walls for some spring color. You also want to prepare any remaining beds for your spring planting; protect any tender exotic plants from frost by fleece wrapping; and cover your delicate perennials with thick natural mulch such as bark chippings or straw. You can also move cannas or dahlia tubers and bring them indoors; to any established lawn you may apply a fall lawn fertilizer and you can lay turf or re-seed an existing lawn. The early part of fall is also a good time to prune your hedges or bushes for the last time and bring back inside any houseplants you had outside but check for diseases or pests first.

Your late fall chores will include planting shrubs, hedges, and trees; plant fruit bushes and climbers; and now you can plant your tulips. This is also a good time to plant onions, garlic, and broad beans. You may even want to try your hand at growing trees from seed. In order to diminish any damage from winter winds, trim any late-flowering shrubs and rake up any fallen leaves and place them in the compost pile. Indoors you can plant amaryllis bulbs along with prepared narcissus and hyacinths.

The following chores can be done any time of the year: build or purchase a compost container, fill it, turn or mix it, and empty some of the contents to replenish you gardens; dig a pond or construct a bog garden especially before the ground freezes; build an arch for climbing roses or flowering ivy plants and create borders around your lawn, flower garden, or vegetable garden. Check all your tree ties and loosen them if needed and cut away diseased or dead wood. Always be on the look-out for diseases or pests and take proper action before it can spread. A must is to clean all cutting and digging tools after each use to help prevent rust and the spread of any diseases.

Your flower garden is going to tell you a lot after the growing season is over. You need to evaluate all your hard work during spring and summer and begin to prepare that garden for the coming spring season. The first thing you want to do is walk through your garden and see how all the plants did during the summer and take note of the failures and successes of each plant. Find the ones that have become overgrown because they may need to be divided and check for diseases and damaged plants. Some bare areas may need a soil amendment or new plants and you want to add organic material where needed. The chores you want to do after surveying the garden are: weeding; deadhead any blooms that have faded or died; divide any plants that are overgrown; dig up any bulbs that are not hardy in your area and place them in winter storage; remove any annuals that are spent; amend the soil and add compost or some organic matter to add back any nutrients that were lost during the summer growth.

Be sure to remove all the annuals from your garden; you can save the seeds and plant them again next year. You may find that zinnias can be an easy plant to be able to collect seeds from and they are easy to grow from seeds. For any of your window boxes just remove the summer annuals, add some more potting mix and cool-weather bloomers such as pansies.

So you see that preparing the garden for next spring along with planting the wanted bulbs and plants are some of the necessary chores that are involved with autumn gardening.