During the colder weather, things have a tendency to change, including your garden. Fall is the perfect time to clean up your garden beds, manage soils and solve problems for the next growing season. It’s also the time to plant your spring-blooming bulbs and pull out tender summer bloomers that have wilted away.
By catering to your garden and making sure it can withstand the colder seasons, you’ll be able to get the most out of your products, growing a beautiful garden for the upcoming season.
If you don’t know where to start, it’s perfectly fine. We’ve done all the hard work for you and provided you with a list of simple tips you could use to make sure your garden is flourishing the way it should be this fall.
Tips You Should Keep in Mind This Fall
Leave the leaves this season: The great news is when you’re raking up all those leaves that have fallen, you don’t have to rake them all. Leave some under trees, shrubs and on sturdy ground covers because they become compost to help fertilize the soil over time. However, make sure you rake leaves that are on perennial beds and grass lawns because they can cause crown rot and attract fungi and insects.
Buy smaller plants: When you go to purchase plants, make sure you purchase the little ones in 4-inch nursery pots because they’re less expensive, easier to handle and will catch up to the larger ones during the winter rains.
Improve the soil in your garden: New season, new soil. Your plants have probably sucked up all the nutrients during the previous season. Now it’s time to replace old soil. Dig up the existing garden soil to a depth of about 10 inches so you can break up clods and remove stones. Then, spread 4 to 6 inches of compost over the area and patch it in. Rake the soil until it’s level and smooth.
Give your plants some room: When planting your plants, make sure you give them enough space to reach their full sizes. Even though you might feel like cramming them together so you can make more room, you must remember a crowded plant never grows well.
Set a watering schedule: If you don’t already have one, set up a watering system. Irrigation drips are more ideal for many plants, and plus your plants will get watered even if you leave for the weekend, but soaker hoses or hose-end sprinklers work pretty well too.
Make sure you water your plants before planting them: Water your plants while they are still in their nursery containers with a hose before planting.
Now it’s time to plant your plants: Slide the roots forming about the plants out of the container and gently loosen the roots on the sides. With a shovel, dig a planting hole that is about twice as wide as the circumference around the plan and about as deep. Set the plant in the hole and cover.
Use mulch to maintain your plant’s moisture: Lay about 2 to 3 inches of mulch like fine bark over the soil around plants in order to prevent weeds and maintain moisture. Make sure you don’t pile it against trunks, crowns or stems because that can cause rot.
