Tag Archives: Fall Garden Clean up

Thumbs-up for Messy Winter Gardens!

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By: Dianne Machesney, Master Gardener, Allegheny County: “Three-fourths of the world’s flowering plants and one-third of our food supplies depend on pollination. Pollinators need plants year-round. The succession of flowers throughout the seasons provide nectar, eggs are laid on host plants ensuring reproductive survival, plants and debris left in the garden serve as safe places for pollinators to overwinter. By planting a variety of native flowering species, and leaving them to stand in our winter gardens, we greatly add to the diversity and abundance of pollinators. ” Penn State Extension: https://extension.psu.edu/fall-garden-care-for-pollinators

By Justin Wheeler, Xercres Society: “One of the most valuable things you can do to support pollinators and other invertebrates is to provide them with the winter cover they need.” https://xerces.org/blog/leave-the-leaves

By Jessica Walliser, Savvy Gardening :  “Our gardens play an important role in supporting wildlife and what we do in them every autumn can either enhance or inhibit that role.”    Six Reason to NOT clean up the garden this fall

Gardening: Prepare for Winter

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In the Rogue Valley, fall is a good time to plant perennials, shrubs, trees and bulbs. Just bulbs.jpgremember to keep new plants well watered until winter rains begin.

Plant Spring Bulbs: Plant daffodils, tulips, crocuses in October and into November until the ground freezes.

Watering: Cut back watering established perennials, shrubs and trees to prepare them for winter. (Remember to continue watering new plants until rains begin.)

Deadheading & Clean up:  To provide food and habitat for pollinators & birds throughout the winter, Do Not cut or remove perennial stems and flower heads until the spring.   NOTE:  If you must have a prim garden, then cut back perennials stems to 6-8 inches on plants that have finished blooming for the season.

Leaves: Rake and remove leaves from the lawn, use leaves as mulch in your flowerbeds, or compost them to make leaf mold.  Shredded leaves break down faster and are easier for worms to turn into compost. Placing shredded leaves in flowerbeds over the winter helps protect plants, suppresses weeds, and will provide nutrients by late spring.

Dig Bulbs.  Tender bulbs such as dahlias and gladiolus should be dug up in cold winter areas.  When foliage begins to yellow and die, cut back foliage, dig up bulbs, and store them in a cool, but freeze-free, area like in an insulated garage, under your house or in an spare refrigerator.   When digging be careful not to damage the bulb.  In lower elevation areas of the Rogue Valley you can cover tender bulbs with 6-8 inches of mulch for winter protection.  

Mulching with leaves, hay, or even evergreen boughs can provide an extra layer of protection for tender perennials. These mulches will catch and hold snow which helps insulate them.

Feed Plants. Fall is a good time to feed perennials by working in a 4 to 6 inch thick layer of compost in your beds. This compost slowly breaks down over winter providing nutrients to the plants and improves soil structure.

Article by: Carlotta Lucas

 

November 11th: Garden Chores

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  • Garlic:  Weather permitting, you still have a week, or two, to plant garlic.
  • Mulch around berry plants.
  • Drain watering systems.
  • Disconnect hoses from hose bibs to prevent hose bib ends from freezing.
  • Insulate outside faucets, if they are not frost-proof hose bibs.
  • Drain and store portable sprinklers, hose-end timers and hose-end sprayers.
  • Rake and destroy fruit tree leaves and fallen fruit to prevent the spread of disease.
  • Spray dormant oil on fruit tress to control overwintering insects and fungus.
  • Spray lime-sulfur of grapes, anytime from now to February.
  •  It’s a good time to plant new trees, fruit trees and blueberries.
  • Prune raspberries to 1 foot above wire, attach canes to wires.
  • Harvest fall crops.
  • Clean tools.

Gardening Tips: Soil Conservation

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Life in the Leaf Litter: Don’t Throw a Good Thing Away

by | Aug 30, 2017 | Soil Conservation

Life in the Leaf Litter: Don’t Throw a Good Thing Away

This is the time of year when those giant paper bags full of fallen leaves start appearing on sidewalks around the country. This is also the time of year I drive around my neighborhood picking up those bags of leaves in my truck and spreading them throughout my garden beds.

The practice of removing our yard waste to landfills is enormously unsustainable:

  • We spend endless hours raking, blowing, and bagging the leaves that fall every year.
  • The use of leaf blowers is a source of noise pollution and air pollution, and uses large amounts of non-renewable fossil fuel.
  • These huge piles are hauled away by truck, using more gasoline and causing more air pollution.
  • Often this organic yard material is dumped into landfills, which destroys wildlife habitat.
  • Then we have mulch trucked in to replace the benefits of the leaves we just hauled away.
  • And we replace the nutrients that were freely available from the decomposition of those leaves with synthetic fertilizers, which are another petroleum product.

This cycle cannot be sustained without causing increasing damage to our environment. It is much more sustainable to manage this yard waste on our own properties.

Fortunately, this is very easy to do and also returns nutrients to the soil, provides habitat for many organisms, and ensures healthy plants.

I pile up these leaves in every one of my flower beds, sometimes it is more than two feet deep. In the spring I take a hand rake and loosen the leaves around my emerging plants, which hide the leaves during the growing season. By the time the next leaves fall, the old leaves have completely decomposed and the soil is ready for a new blanket.

Why do I do this?

  • There is a cycle of life contained in the leaf litter and we destroy many forms of wildlife every time we remove these leaves.
  • Many butterflies find shelter in the leaf litter, either in egg, pupal, or adult form, to safely wait out the winter and emerge in the spring.
  • Leaf litter provides food and shelter to an amazing variety of invertebrates who break down the leaves, which feeds the soil and other wildlife.
  • Healthy plants are dependent on healthy soil.
  • The deeper the leaf litter, the more spiders are supported. Spiders are an essential element in keeping pest insects in balance.
  • Leaf litter is also home to ladybugs, salamanders, toads, and other predators of pest insects. It is no wonder that pests like aphids thrive when we continue to destroy the habitat of the predators that would keep them under control.
  • Every spring these leaves are covered with birds who pick through the leaves in search of a tasty meal.
  • Trucked in mulch is not necessary when the leaves are left to cover the soil because the leaf litter acts as a natural blanket of mulch, controlling soil moisture and temperature.

I know there are many gardeners who cannot bear the thought of even one leaf creating a “mess” in their pristine garden beds. But it’s easy to tuck the leaves under your shrubs or in a back corner where they can work their magic and leave your sense of tidyness intact.

Or the leaves can be composted and then spread over your soil so at least the natural nutrients can be returned to the soil.

The benefits to your local wildlife far outweigh any need for neatness.

Fall Clean Up

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CORVALLIS, Ore. – It’s time, before cold weather sets in, to clean your yard and garden to protect them from winter weather. The following tasks, best done in October and November, are recommended by Ross Penhallegon, horticulturist with the Oregon State University Extension Service.

“Mulch your empty garden beds with fallen leaves and grass cuttings if they don’t have a cover crop on them yet,” Penhallegon said. “Mulch will help prevent erosion and rainwater compaction. Mulching also adds organic matter to the soil and encourages earthworm activity. Plus it will keep weed germination down.”

Control the weeds that have recently germinated from early fall rains. It is a much easier job now than in the spring. A hoe or hand pulling will do it. “This is not a good time of year to use herbicides,” he said. “The damp soil makes it easy to hoe or pull weeds, big or little.”

Penhallegon also advises homeowners to apply a small amount of slow-release nitrogen fertilizer to lawns, if needed.

“Use just enough to keep the lawn green, but not enough to cause need for additional mowing,” he said. “Don’t use quick-release fertilizer, as it will just leach away. Don’t apply fertilizer to trees, flowers or shrubs this time of year, as it may reduce their cold tolerance.”

Other pre-winter advice:

• Cut back late-flowering perennials such as asters and chrysanthemums to a few inches. Peonies can be cut all the way to the ground. Mulch the crowns with compost to protect them from hard freezes.

• Prune late-summer and fall-flowering shrubs like clethra and hydrangea several weeks before icy winter weather or hold off until mid-February to do your pruning. Trim back roses to knee height so winter winds won’t cause damage.

• Keep your perennial gardens free of wind-blown plant refuse. Continue to rake your lawn, as more leaves fly, and add them to your compost pile.

• Pull up spent summer annuals such as snapdragons, marigolds, zinnias, cosmos and nasturtiums that have died back.

• Dig and store summer flowering bulbs and tubers (both west and east of the Cascades), including dahlias, calla lilies, canna lilies, gladiolus and tuberoses because of potential very cold winter weather that freezes the ground. Store them in a dark, dry and cool (above freezing) place, safe from rodents.

Author: Judy Scott   
Article written: December 9, 2010