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5 Fall Gardening Chores You Shouldn't Ignore!

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fall gardening tip for homeowners For much of the country, fall means the end to working outdoors for another year. There are always many tasks that have to be completed before the first snowflakes start to fall.

5 Gardening Chores to Accomplish this Fall:

  1. Pull Plants - Within the next couple of weeks, I will be pulling up my vegetable garden plants and all the flowering annuals that I put in this past spring. I will probably wait a little while before cutting back the perennial plants. As long as the sun continues to shine, those plants will continue to grow and develop into a stronger plant for next year. I like to cut back all my perennials after they have had a chance to harden off for the winter. This usually means that I wait until after the first frost before chopping plants back.
  2. Trim Overgrowth - Fall is also a good time to thin out overcrowded plants or move ones that have outgrown their site. If Powdery Mildew was a problem on some of your perennials, move them to a sunnier location. If you have Hostas in your gardens and they experienced sun scald from too much sun this summer, move them to a shadier place. I have a problem with slugs eating the leaves off of my Hostas, so I try to cut them back every fall to reduce the number that overwinter. I have been doing so for as long as I have been growing Hostas. It seems to keep them in check.
  3. Sprinkler Blow Out - If you have a sprinkler system and you haven’t had the water blown out of it yet, time is running out.
  4. Core and Dormant Seed - There is still time to core aerate your lawn this fall. If you were planning to overseed this fall, I suggest you wait until late November or early December and dormant seed your lawn. The seed will overwinter and germinate next spring once the ground warms up enough to germinate the seed. The one caveat to dormant seeding is that it usually isn’t a good idea to apply a crabgrass preventer next spring until the new seed germinates, which could be as late as early June.

core aerating

  1. Fertilize - A fall fertilization is also very helpful for your lawn. Roots and rhizome growth are most active in fall, so the plant will utilize the fertilizer very well. The fall application is the most important application of the year.
Follow along with these blog posts as there will be more things you can do as long as the weather cooperates. In the meantime, if you haven’t had your lawn aerated this fall or need to schedule a fall fertilization, contact your neighborhood lawn care professional at Spring-Green.