Late garden season do’s and don’ts
It’s inevitable: Jack Frost is soon due for a visit to your garden. Many northern growing zones have already had frost.
This signals that we are entering the last phase of gardening activity before the ground freezes hard as concrete and your hydrangea flowers hang heavy with snow.
There are at least four weeks of outdoor gardening activity ahead of us. This should make Canadians who want to stay busy outside happy. We keep hearing how important physical movement and the outdoors are to our health during COVID-19.
So, to make the most of what’s left of the 2020 gardening season, here are seven outdoor activities that should be done before we get a hard frost: 1. Rake, don’t blow. The leaves are falling, and it is time to grab a rake and move them from the lawn onto your garden. To help them break down faster, run over them a couple of times with a lawnmower.
If you don’t have leaves to rake, be a community angel and offer to rake leaves for neighbours who do not like the job — or who can’t do it. And put away your two-cycle power leaf blower.
Now that you are not gathering leaves into large bags for pick up, it serves no purpose. Not that it ever did, in our opinion. We just think the noise-pollution machines don’t help the organic feeding of your garden the way quietly raked leaves do. 2. Fertilize your lawn. Two months ago, we said that you should leave the last application of lawn fertilizer to the end of fall. And now, finally, it’s time to do that over the next few weeks.
Look for a quality fall lawn food with about 12 per cent of slow-release nitrogen, the first number in the three-number analysis. 3. Leave your perennials alone. OK, this is really a non-activity, but it never hurts to get out and enjoy the sight of your seasonally returning plants.
By leaving them standing, you provide protection for small wildlife over the winter and also protect beneficial bacteria: soil-borne mycorrhizae and insects. Nature created all of them with a purpose: to contribute to the sustainability of the natural systems that support soil health. Healthy soil equals great plants and a successful garden. 4. Do not sanitize your garden. Recently, in Guelph, we saw a shop vacuum in someone’s garden. It gave us a start and made us wonder what was going on there?
Remember when our parents sucked up every piece of “debris” in the garden and sent it away? Smart gardeners do not do that anymore. We consider this “debris” a resource that helps to support the biodiversity of next year’s garden. Relax, enjoy the game, hug your children, or take the time we just saved you to go for a walk in a park. 5. Dahlias, canna lilies, and tuberous begonias need saving. The frost may have already knocked out your tender, summer-flowering plants. For some, there is a mass of root tubers that are stored under ground waiting for you to dig them up, dry them in a sunny window for a few days and store in a cool, dry place for the winter.
Dahlias, canna lilies (which are not really lilies) and tuberous begonias provide a treasure trove of valuable fleshy roots that you can start indoors next March to add to your garden come May. 6. Watering. This is counterintuitive. After all, the weather is all around us and when it is cool and damp, we become cold to the bone. Plants, on the other hand, pull moisture down to their roots in the fall and use it as a natural antifreeze to prevent winter damage.
Trees, shrubs and evergreens all need to be thoroughly soaked at the root zone now to help them survive the winter in good shape. Pay special attention to the plants under soffits and eaves around your house, where rainfall often is lacking. 7. Feed the birds. By setting up a feeding station now, you’re helping songbirds with a food source they can frequent later in the season.
When the snow flies, they will come to your place looking for food, when many natural sources of sustenance — like the perennials that you left standing — are covered in snow.