Fall Garden Punchlist
Fall Garden Punchlist
If you're a DIY gardener in the upper Midwest you can do some garden prep in early November before the real winterizing begins. It's hard to overlook the obvious, like chucking the blackened skeletons of frost-stunned annuals, emptying containers for the next color display and cutting back perennials that don't dazzle in snow. May I remind you of some more easily overlooked chores?
Lawns
Hopefully, you fertilized the end of August or early September. You're no-o-o-t-t-t fi-i-i-n-i-i-sh-ed. Making another application, whether organic or synthetic, around Halloween or even early November, will give you a head start on thicker grass for 2017.
Keep mowing as long as grass is growing. Or, don't leaf (pun intended) the leaves to freeze on the lawn. Keep harvesting and removing. Leaves that freeze matted into your grass will leave an unpleasant reminder for you in the spring - a bare spot that corresponds exactly to where the leaves froze. This bare soil (in the sunny parts of your lawn) will be where crabgrass may appear next spring, as if by magic!
Bulbs
After planting your new spring-flowering bulbs do fertilize. Years ago we recommended putting the fertilizer in the bottom of the hole and placing the bulbs on top. Research now dictates putting the bulbs in the hole, covering them with soil and placing the fertilizer above the bulbs. Water will move the nutrients down into (but not past) the root zone.
As hardy as tulips, hyacinths and daffodils are a 1-2" layer of an organic mulch (leaf mulch, cotton bur compost, pine fines) is a great recommendation when you've finished planting and watering. We've learned that mulched bulbs produce a more uniform flower show than unmulched. Flowers may be delayed a bit since mulched soil warms slowly, but is that a big deal? Not for me either.
Bringing tropicals and houseplants back inside after a summer vacation on the patio? At least two weeks before the first expected frost do your own USDA-style inspection. Don't overlook the potential livestock biomass hiding and multiplying even though plants appear clean at a glance.If the plant has mealybugs or mites, I would pitch it. If the plant has less difficult issues to control consider using "Systemic Granules". I recommend sequestering any summer-outside plant in a solitary confinement room (with no other clean plants to infest) for three to four weeks until you're sure it's pest-free.
Wildlife
Male deer (bucks) are testosterone-crazed in October and November. They take their itchy-antlered frustration out on young tree trunks (less than 3" in diameter, with limbs at least 5' off the ground). These attacks can easily kill a tree by slashing off the bark. You can try a repellent (like Plant-Skydd), or put three or four heavy temporary metal fence posts in the ground a couple of feet from the trunk to deter.
Deer will eat arborvitae and yews in winter. They can be dissuaded by covering evergreens with "deer" or "bird netting". It's a black mesh so it doesn't show, but does make grazing difficult. Easier to move to the neighbors' landscape.
Bunnies maybe driven (in deep snow) to chew off arborvitae branches they can reach. They will also strip bark from burning bush, crabapples, fruit trees, Cotoneaster and hornbeam. The easiest solution is to screen the trunks with hardware cloth corrals. Remember to make them high so that with deep snow and standing on tiptoes "Bugs" can't reach over and gnaw a meal off your prized specimens. Stripped bark can be fatal. This should also offer protection from mice and voles. They're all rodents and love the same dinner fare!
Completing any, or all, of the above tasks should put a better face on your garden come spring!