- Plant all types of permanent landscape plants other than bare-root and tropicals.
- Plant trees, shrubs and vines.
- Choose plants for fall and winter color in your garden.
- Continue to shop for spring-blooming bulbs.
- Plant lilies as soon as you get them home.
- Buy daffodils, grape hyacinths, ranunculus, anemones and Dutch irises; keep them in a cool, dry place until planting time.
- Purchase hyacinth, tulip, and crocus bulbs; pre-chill them in the refrigerator.
- Plant cool-season flowers for winter and spring bloom.
- Plant wildflowers.
- Plant cool-season lawns; this is the best time of year for this job.
- Plant cool-season vegetables and year-round vegetables, including carrots and some perennial vegetables.
- Thin out sweet peas and pinch them back to force branching.
- Divide, trim, and mulch plants that tend to grow in a clump and that need to be divided, including clivia, iris, daylily, bird of paradise, gazanias, and perennials like Shasta daisies.
- Cut back zonal and ivy geraniums; finish pruning Martha Washingtons.
- Divide hardy water lilies.
- Divide belladonna lilies.
- Dig up, divide and replant perennials; put unwanted ones in the mulch pile.
- Cut off runners from strawberries, gather them in bunches, and pre-chill them for November planting.
- Feed fuchsias.
- Continue to treat blue hydrangeas with aluminum sulfate.
- Stop fertilizing chrysanthemums and just enjoy the blooms.
- Fertilize poinsettias with a complete fertilizer high in bloom ingredients.
- Feed roses early in October; don't fertilize in November.
- Water deciduous fruit trees more sparingly in fall.
- Water roses with up to 1 1/2 inches of water twice a week, unless it rains.
- Finish pulling out faded annual flowers and cleaning pots and beds for fall.
- Thoroughly clean up the vegetable garden; pull up the last of the summer crops and compost the remains (if you have had fungus or disease problems, skip the composting and get rid of them instead).
Encourage Rose Bloom:
Well-tended roses put on a fine show this month. To promote a holiday encore, keep blossoms picked, cutting stems just above a five-leaflet leaf at a 45ยบ angle. Continue watering and feeding.
Visit our pumpkin patch for all your outdoor fall decorating needs. In addition, we have fall indoor decorations available in The Gift Shop.
Watch the shadows stretch across the garden as the sun dips ever lower, and note that some sunny areas become quite shaded. Don't plant things that need sun in an area where it soon won't shine. On the other hand, areas in deep shade during summer, as under trees, are often bathed in sun all winter long - a good place for spring bulbs and many annuals.
Re-program irrigation timers and systems to reflect the decrease in water needs, as the days get shorter and the weather cools.
