Most October yard and garden activities are enjoyable ones that ensure that next year’s gardening season will be a good one.
This is the time to plant bulbs of tulips, daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths and other early spring flowering plants. Plant bulbs 2 ½ times as deep as they are tall with the pointy side up. Throw a little bone meal in the hole, cover with soil and water well.
Water, water, water. It is especially important to water evergreen plants right up until the ground freezes because they continue to transpire, or lose water, from their needles all through the winter. Also water any perennial that still has green leaves, all young trees and fruit trees, and raspberries and strawberries. Unless the weather pattern changes soon and dramatically, these plants are going to go into winter under drought stress and will have a hard time recovering in spring.
October is the best time of the year to deal with two invasive plants. Buckthorn should be cut as low as possible to the ground and the cut area should be painted with Brush-B-Gone. In your lawn, creeping Charlie, or ground ivy, can be killed with one cup of borax mixed with two gallons of warm water sprayed over 1,000 square feet. Plant energy is moving toward the roots this time of year and the Brush-B-Gone or borax will be taken into the roots where it will kill the plant.
If you plan to overwinter geraniums in a dormant state, shake the soil from the roots and place them, leaves and all, in cardboard boxes or paper bags in a cool, dark part of your basement. In spring, trim off any withered stems and shorten ones that are too tall before re-planting them in pots to go outdoors.
As dry as the ground is this year, it is hard to pull up weeds, but if you remove perennial weeds now you will be very glad when spring comes. I usually hold a hose in one hand and weed with the other, soaking around the roots while I pull up the weeds.
Cut down any perennial plants that have turned brown and gone dormant, unless they have flower heads you want to keep for winter interest. If there are bare spots in your mulch, now is a good time to replenish it.
Don’t be in a hurry to rake your lawn. Use a lawnmower or leaf shredder to shred the leaves and either leave them on the lawn, compost them, or use them for mulch.
This is a good time to take a look at your landscape and make notes of changes you want to make for next year. You may think you’ll remember your ideas but five or six months from now, trust me, you won’t.
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