5 Great Gardening Tips for Fall

Spring and Summer gardening tasks always seem so much more fun as we are looking forward to enjoying our gardens. Fall always reminds us that we are preparing for winter, and so, those pesky garden chores always seem a little less appealing, don’t they?

While this may be the case, proper preparation for winter can make the spring tasks less onerous and ensure healthier and happier plants next year. Here are just a few of our favourite tips and tricks to get you on your way to enjoying spring and summer even more next year. While this may be the case, proper preparation for winter can make the spring tasks less onerous and ensure healthier and happier plants next year. Here are just a few of our favourite tips and tricks to get you on your way to enjoying spring and summer even more next year.

1. Mapping Your Success (and the not-so-successful)

Spring comes with a rush of enthusiasm and at least a little impatience to get gardening and see the splashes of beautiful colour once again in our yards after the often very white winter landscape. The rush to colour though, can sometimes leave us with the wrong plants in the wrong places.

Before embarking on fall tasks, it is always good to take stock of your garden and create a simple sketch of what plants were where, what you liked (and didn’t), what worked well (and did not work well) with a view to planning your garden for next spring. This can do 2 important things for you. Once the snow has finally melted in the spring it will remind you of where your perennial plants, containers and annuals were last year while you are looking at a mostly brown space, and, it makes the starting of the less enjoyable fall cleanup seem just a little less tedious…you can look forward to next year as you work through your tasks.

2. Multiplying Beauty Through Dividing Perennials

Most of our gardens have some perennial components that form the base of our gardens to which we add the spectacular colour and variety provided by annual plantings or containers. Perennials can often grow quite large and many are best served if we can divide them and add the smaller plants to other locations in our gardens. Now that you’ve created a simple garden map, you will know where you might want to add some of these divided plants.
The Fall season is the very best time to divide the Spring and Summer perennials, while Spring works best for those that flower in the Fall. To view a great video on how to divide and care for your perennial gems, please click here.

 

 

 

3. Enjoying a Bountiful Harvest

One of the great things about this time of year for those of us who have vegetable gardens is the harvesting. Whether you have had an herb garden, lettuce, or tomato plants that have been producing wonderful additions to your table all summer, or you have been looking forward to digging up some amazing root vegetables, garden-to-table just can’t be beat for freshness and a real sense of personal accomplishment. Before you get on to some of the less enjoyable tasks of cleanup, enjoy the fruits (quite literally in some cases) of your Spring and Summer labour!

 

 

 

4. Weeds and Leaves

The look of a garden without weeds is truly wonderful, isn’t it? It is something that every gardener enjoys and some of us even enjoy the process of weeding. It is truly one of those tasks that, when completed, brings a very real sense of accomplishment as we sit and survey the results of our hard work!

While it may seem that during the Fall period, there is not much weeding to be done, it is important to continue to stay on top of the weeds. Just one weed left to overwinter in the garden can produce, quite literally, thousands of seeds that will come back to haunt us next Spring and Summer. Care and work now can mean much more leisure time next summer and who doesn’t like that concept!

All those beautiful trees that provide some much-needed summer shade also provide one of the greatest Fall pastimes for many families; raking leaves. Much like weeding gives a sense of accomplishment, that same feeling also exists when we look at our clear lawns. But clean leaves don’t always have to head to the compost pile. Clean leaves (no diseases) can provide winter protection for some of the more tender perennials and shrubs in our gardens, and can then be mulched right into the soil in the spring.

5. Lawn Care

Part of having a beautiful garden is the lush green backdrop that a healthy lawn provides. Taking care of your lawn in the Fall, much like maintaining your garden, can provide a much easier Spring season. Continuing to mow the lawn, aerating it, filling in bald spots, continuing weed control, raking the leaves regularly, and adding fertilizer can help to ensure that your lawn starts off the spring in the green. For more information on what to do, and how to do it, please click here.