10 Tips for Your Garden This Fall

Did you have a great gardening season this year?  A challenging one?  No matter the case, follow these tips for your garden this fall to give yourself a head start in the spring!

1. Plant spring blooming bulbs like tulips, allium, and crocus. Be sure to plant bulbs at the proper depths and water well. This is also the best time to plant your garlic for the summer 2023 harvest.
2. Did you have problems with pests and diseases on your shade trees, fruit trees, or shrubs this season? Once your tree or shrub has gone dormant apply a dormant kit so it will leaf out to a happy, healthy atmosphere in the spring. This is a 2-part kit including horticultural oil (kills a number of residing insects and eggs) and lime sulphur (kills residing fungal spores causing diseases). 
3. Plant trees and shrubs. This is a great time to plant as the temperatures are cooler making it easier for establishing new plantings. Soil temperatures are still warm to produce good roots to anchor in for winter; your plants then wake up to spring warmth from winter moisture. 
4. Water, water, water! Water your new plants and evergreens right until freeze up. Once your deciduous trees & shrubs have dropped their leaves, they no longer require watering. One exception to fall watering is sugar maples, it is proven that they shut down for winter better with an ease off watering in the fall. 
5. Extend your container season with grasses and chrysanthemums. They are easily available this time of year and are cold tolerant. Marigolds, ornamental cabbage, dusty miller, petunias, and pansies are also great options for cool weather planters.
   
6. Add sea soil compost to your perennial beds for a spring feeding when your plants wake up. Who doesn’t like breakfast! 
7. Make notes on your garden harvest while it’s fresh on your mind. What worked? What didn’t? What do you want more or less of? 
8. Split any perennials and move any plants that require moving once dormancy has set in. Add a little seas soil when transplanting to help promote good root growth in spring. 
9. Cut back and add mulch to those plants that require a little more TLC like some varieties of roses and hydrangeas. Peat moss makes a great insulating mulch and makes for easy spring clean-up as you can work it into your flower bed in the spring. 
10. Apply your fall sprays like Wilt Pruf on your evergreens to help your evergreens from browning. Wilt pruf is an anti-transparent spray that locks in moisture during the cold winter months. Apply Bobbex to help ward off those hungry deer that like to eat things like your lush green cedars.