As the growing season winds down during October and November, a few simple garden activities will help make the coming spring planting season a breeze.
While there are many gardeners who choose to leave garden cleanup for the spring season, fall is a great time to remove dead plant material, begin a compost pile and reduce the chances of disease and pest problems during winter and into next year’s growing season.
Leave the leaves?
It is especially important to remove diseased leaves completely from your yard and garden, especially those showing signs of maple leaf tar spot. Removing these leaves completely from your yard and garden will reduce the chances of an outbreak next year.
This is because the spores from the fungus that causes tar spot overwinter beneath the snow and emerge during spring when warm winds and rising thermals lift them into the treetops where they infect your leaves.
Mulching and shredding them will not eliminate the spores so it is best to completely remove diseased leaves from your property.
Healthy leaves have many great uses that should be taken advantage of. Of course, composting leaves is a great idea, mixing with kitchen scraps and garden waste to create a rich, beneficial compost. Some leaves compost easier than others. Oak leaves are slow to break down and should be used sparingly.
Save some of your leaves and place into wire mesh cages or piles to experiment with new ways to grow potatoes, onions and other root crops next spring. All of these crops can be grown in loose leaves rather than in garden soil, and the results are spectacular.
Mulching or shredding healthy autumn leaves provides a beneficial, free natural compost layer in the lawn and garden beds as well.
To cut or not to cut?
Many simple garden tasks can be performed in the fall to clean up garden beds and planted areas to ready them for the spring season.
While many gardeners prefer to leave perennials standing for winter interest, be sure to check for especially cluttered or crowded areas that should be opened up to help prevent the spread of disease.
Cleaning up annual flowerbeds and containers is easy enough and can be done by simply pulling dead annuals, including vegetables and flowers, from these planting areas.
Before tossing some of those annuals though, be sure to take cuttings that you can start indoors and grow all winter long. Geraniums, coleus, blood leaf and others make great choices for cuttings.
Many gardeners also choose to overwinter annuals such as geraniums, Gerbera daisies and others indoors.
Either allow them to continue to grow in a bright sunny location indoors or hang upside down in the basement and allow to go dormant. Gardeners have success overwintering dormant annuals both in pots and by air drying. However, overwintering in pots in dormant form is riskier as the plants may dry out or rot.
If these annuals show signs of disease, dispose of them with your lawn and garden waste. Healthy plants can be composted to help build your own supply of rich, beneficial compost that you can use in your garden for years to come.
Perennials and ornamental grasses can be cut back to within 6 inches of the ground and cleaned up, if so desired. Again, dispose of any plant material that shows signs of disease and compost the remainder.
It is not necessary to create a formal or fancy compost bin or pile. You may wish to stack yard and garden clippings in an open or bare space in the garden and turn over the pile as much as possible before freezing weather arrives.
In the spring, spread a 3- to 4-inch layer of your new compost over the garden bed and till into the soil. This rich, healthy, all-natural compost may be all you need to grow spectacular plants.
Other fall cleanup activities
Fall is also a great time to dig up and divide your perennials, as there is still plenty of time for them to become established before the ground freezes. Most clumping perennials can be lifted and pulled apart division by division by hand. Some may require cutting with a sterile knife or tool. Transplant your new divisions, water in well and enjoy the show for years to come.
Summer-blooming bulbs such as dahlias, callas, cannas, elephant ears, caladium and gladiolus should be dug after the first hard frost, dried outdoors in a sunny spot for one to two weeks, then brought indoors and stored in a cool, dry location. These bulbs also can be divided at this time and stored over winter to be replanted next spring.
Have it your way
It is important to remember that there is no right or wrong way to put your garden to bed in the fall. There are just as many gardeners that swear by leaving everything standing and doing a complete spring cleanup as those who completely clean up the garden beds and remove all plant material in the fall.
My personal preference is a combination of the two. I enjoy leaving many perennials standing for winter interest, food for songbirds and winter beauty, while at the same time thinning and removing as much loose plant material as possible, especially iris leaves as this helps prevent outbreaks of iris borer the following year. I also like to apply a thick layer of compost evenly throughout the garden during the fall.
Removing as much excess and loose plant material as possible will reduce the chances of garden pests next year as well as over the winter months.
Common garden enemies such as voles find easy pickings and shelter in leftover garden debris. So if you have had problems with voles in the past, you probably wish to remove all garden material during the fall to take away any potential hiding places for these hungry critters.
— Rob Zimmer: 920-419-3734, firstname.lastname@example.org; on Twitter @YardMD