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Landscaping Tips
Timing is everything, especially when it comes to keeping your landscaping top-notch. For instance, autumn is great time to plant trees, but a terrible time for pruning certain shrubs. Don't wait until spring to find out that your fall garden maintenance did more harm than good. Read on to learn what not to do in the garden this fall.
Leaf raking isn’t purely for aesthetics. Just because no one rakes the forest floor and the trees seem to do fine, don't assume your lawn will fare as well. Matted leaves left on your lawn all winter can suffocate grass and compromise airflow. Making things even worse, snow mold, a lawn fungal infection, can fester beneath the fallen leaves, leading to ugly dead areas.
After a long winter, who wants to wait until April for the first spring flowers? Don't forget to take steps now to make sure your garden gets some early color next year. These cool fall days are ideal for planting bulbs like snowdrops, which look great arranged in small clumps, and crocuses, which are lovely along a walkway or even scattered randomly throughout the lawn. In early spring, when these bright flowers pop up from beneath the snow, you'll know that warm weather can't be far behind.
It’s tempting to go for broke and level the entire garden in the fall. A clean canvas can be so appealing! But there are thousands of creatures that need to ride out the winter in the hollow stems, peeling bark, and other nooks and crannies of our gardens. Leave them a little sanctuary. As well, native bees, butterflies, birds, and pest-munching insects benefit from the "dead" gardens of winter.
Young or thin-barked newly planted trees like maple, linden, and ash are susceptible to winter damage from temperature fluctuations and little critters that prey on their delicate flesh. By late November, protect young trees with tree wrap, starting from the bottom up, or with the plastic tube that may have come with a tree from a nursery.
After a frost or two have hit, you may be inclined to put your feet up and stop weeding completely. But those weeds are hanging on, determined to muscle through the cold weather and return in the spring. Don't let them win! Give them a yank while you still can. Come spring, you'll be glad to have one or two fewer weeds to deal with.
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