Watering trees is incredibly important. The drought this summer has left a huge number of our boulevard trees looking like this.

This is the season to get to your local garden center and start to plant!  There are so many fabulous sales going on right now and this is a great time of year to get back in your garden and plant.  It’s just a warning, but frost will arrive this month.  The question is when and how hard will it hit?

• Divide and transplant plants such as iris, daylilies and hostas
• Plant peonies now, but make sure the crowns are buried only one and a half to two inches below ground level. Planting them deeper than two inches may keep them from blooming.
• Perennial phlox can be divided about every third or fourth year. Divide big clumps of perennial phlox into thirds. Early fall or early spring are the best times to plant or transplant them.
• Purchase plants and get them in the ground so their roots can become established before winter. Replace any plants that did not survive the summer and fill in the spaces in your garden.
• Prune arborvitae bushes
• Keep weeding
• Destroy any yard waste that is diseased
• Rake up leaves, twigs and fruit from crabapple trees and dispose of them in the trash to help control apple scab disease.
• Fall is a good time for improving your garden soil. Add manure, compost and leaves to increase the organic matter content.
• Be sure to keep strawberry beds weed free. Every weed you pull now will help make weeding much easier next spring.
• Keep watering. It’s important to provide adequate moisture going into winter to help prevent winter damage.
• Select accent plants for your landscape that will provide autumn colors. Trees that have red fall color are flowering dogwood, red maple, sugar maple, Norway maple, red oak and scarlet oak. Shrubs with red fall foliage include sumac, viburnum, burning bush and barberry.
• Stop fertilizing plants so plants can begin to rest before shutting down for winter
• After a hard freeze, dig up dahlia and canna tubers and store in a cool place inside for the winter
• Later in the month, plant tulips, daffodils, and other spring flowering bulbs
• Plant grass seed and be sure to keep watered
• Harvest the last of the vegetables and herbs

Text by Carolyn Johnson