Fall Garden Maintenance Tips

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Fall is a busy time in the garden. Here are a few helpful tips and things to think about to help you be an effective gardener during this beautiful season.

Update Pots for Winter

This is a great time to give your pots a refresh. Dig out your summer annuals and replace them with fall and winter interest plants. Consider a colorful conifer for interest every day of the year. Get your flower fix by including a winter-flowering perennial like a Heather or Hellebore. Add some evergreen grass for texture, such as Bronze Carex or Blue Fescue. Tuck in a few seasonal annuals for splash. At this time of year, choose from Pansies, Cabbage Mums, or Cyclamen. Finish it off with something like Wintergreen, which offers red berries for a final bit of zip. Don’t forget to work in a few fresh handfuls of compost or manure to give your plants the fertility they need to be their best.

Protect Your Trees, Shrubs from Deer

Late fall/early winter is rutting season. This is when bucks rub their antlers and foreheads on trees, shrubs, fenceposts, etc. to release their scent and mark their territory. Surround your plants with fencing, monofilament, or deer spray to protect them from damage. Even “deer resistant” plants are eligible for rutting damage. 

If you would like to read more about protecting your plants from deer, you can read this blog post. 

Tidy Up with Care

Keeping a clean garden is important for disease prevention, but it is also important to consider the birds and bugs. Strategically leave some standing dead perennials to provide winter interest in the garden, as well as food for the birds. 

Any flower in the daisy family makes seeds that small birds adore. Take the easy road – instead of deadheading your Brown-Eyed Susans, Asters, and Heleniums, leave them to form seed heads. When it snows, it’s really charming to watch little birds land on these stems and peck their dinners out!

Spent stems can be beautiful! Plants such as grasses, Iris, Phlomis, Artichoke/Cardoon, Yarrow, Agapanthus, and Allium make beautiful seed heads that provide lots of interest when left standing for the winter.

Don’t get too tidy in the garden or you can clean away habitat for nature’s helpers. Creatures like ground beetles, snakes, and lizards eat slugs, slug eggs, and other bothersome critters. They need the cover of stones, branches, and leaves to hide in during the winter. Create habitat for them by leaving some of your deciduous perennials “unkempt” for the winter. Letting the foliage die back naturally and rot provides cover. You can also leave a few small logs laying around, or create small piles of stones for them to hide in. Evergreen grasses, ferns, and perennials are also wonderful shelters for these garden friends.

Stop the Pest and Disease Cycle

Keep your plants healthy next year by cleaning up diseased foliage now. Don’t perpetuate disease by composting the infected foliage; instead, throw it in the trash. This includes common garden plant diseases such as black spot, botrytis, powdery mildew, shot hole, and other fungal infections.

Prevent overwintering pests. If you have had an insect infestation in your garden, read up on how that critter overwinters, and take care to disrupt their overwintering habits in order to have fewer pests next year. 

Those of us with fruit trees should clean up all fallen fruit to prevent overwintering of fruit pests such as Apple Maggot. Dispose of the fruit–do not compost it. Similarly, rake up and dispose of the leaves from any trees that have suffered from scab to prevent fungal spores from overwintering.

To cut or not to cut? 

Some plants are puzzling! When should we cut them back? Here are a few ways to think about plants that I find helpful in analyzing what to cut back or not. 

Meet the Silvers! These are plants like Lavender, Russian Sage (Perovskia), Lamb’s Ear (Stachys), Wormwood (Artemesia), Senecio, and so on. Pretty much any plant with silver foliage does NOT want to be cut back when it is chilly. 

Another group is “plants on the verge.” These are plants that are on the verge of hardiness here in the PNW. These include any woody shrubs/perennials from warmer places, such as Pittosporum, Manzanita (Arctostaphylos), Grevillia, Leptospermum, Eucalyptus, Hebe, and so on.

Another group of plants that should NOT be cut back are the evergreen grasses. Plants such as Carex (of all types), Blue Oat (Helictotrichon), Blue Fescue (Festuca), Mondo (Ophiopogon), and Lilyturf (Ophiopogon) are all grasses that prefer to be left alone and should rarely be cut back! If these plants start looking tattered, you can cut them back in the spring when temps start to warm and your lawn is waking up. Follow a trim with an application of a nitrogen fertilizer for the best regrowth. Only cut these plants back every several years.

Reconfigure

Since fall is the best time for planting and transplanting, it’s a great time to take a fresh look at your garden. Did it work this year? Are there changes you’d like to make? Do you have enough winter interest? Take advantage of low-stress weather (for the digger and the plant!), as well as the many root-growth cycles that autumn and winter offer and make your garden edits and additions now. 

Shop for Fall Color

The best time to buy a plant for its fall color is when it’s showing it. Come on over to Venture Out to see the show and make your selection. Here are a few of my favorite plants for fall foliage:

  • Sumac (Rhus) ‘Gro-Lo’
  • Dogwood (Cornus) ‘Baileyi’
  • Cranberry Viburnum ‘Winterthur’
  • Witch Hazel (Hamamelis)
  • Cherry (Prunus)
  • Maple, especially Acer ginnala
  • Smoke Bush (Cotinus)
  • Barberries (Berberis)
  • Serviceberry (Amelanchier)

Shop for Winter Interest

When the leaves are falling, it’s a good time for plants to reveal their winter charms, bringing the focus to their forms, bark, or persistent berries/fruit. Here are a few of my favorite plants for winter interest:

  • Oakleaf Hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia)
  • Vine Maple (Acer) ‘Pacific Fire’
  • Striped Bark Maple (Acer tegmentosum)
  • Spindle Tree (Euonymus europea)
  • Hawthornes Crataegus lavallei or ‘Winter King’
  • Crabapples (Malus), especially ‘Golden Raindrops’
  • Korean Dogwood (Cornus kousa)
  • Stewartia pseudocamellia or monadelpha

And then, of course, there are all the colorful conifers that number too many to talk about here. (Learn more about my favorite conifers in this blog post.)

Protect and Improve Your Soil

This is the time for making compost, spreading compost, mulching, and for planting cover crops. Mulches and cover crops help protect your soil from erosion caused by winter rains. They can help keep nutrients from being carried away with the rain, and they can help prevent cool-season weeds from germinating.

Fall clean up offers lots of material for the compost. Remember that fallen leaves and spent plants are often a great source of trapped nutrients. Adding this plant material to your compost will make it more nutritious for the next plants to receive it. Maintain the potency of the compost pile by keeping it covered so rain doesn’t wash away all its goodness.

Prepare for spring beauty!

Look ahead and plan your spring garden now! Plant bulbs such as Daffodil, Hyacinth, and Tulip for a welcome blast of color in the spring. Protect them from squirrels digging by covering the planting area with a piece of hardware cloth staked over the bulbs. In my garden, Daffodils, Alliums, and Dutch Hyacinth are the most deer resistant of the bulbs.

Sow cool season annual seeds like Love in a Mist (Nigella) and Larkspur.

October and November are also the best months to plant garlic!

Prune

Once a plant has lost its leaves, it is safe for pruning. This is the easiest time to see the skeleton of the plants. It is really best to wait until the plant has been dormant for a while. Fall is an okay time for light pruning.

Winterize

Prepare for freezing and windy weather. Turn off and winterize your irrigation system. Drain and hang hoses. Protect spigots with insulating covers.

Bring in any tender patio plants that you wish to overwinter, such as Hibiscus, Princess Flower (Tibuchina), Bougainvillea, Mandevilla, Geranium, tender Succulents, and so on.

Windproof your garden. Store your patio furniture. Make sure row covers are weighted down. Tidy away buckets, watering cans, etc.

Slug and Snail Control

Whenever it is moist, slugs and snails flourish! Protect your plants by using a non-toxic, iron phosphate-based slug bait like Slug Magic or Sluggo. Products like these control the slug and snail population without causing danger to dogs and cats.

Certainly, this isn’t ALL there is to do in the fall garden, but hopefully this helps you get started!

Happy gardening!

Oh, Deer! Winning the Battle with Whidbey Island’s most Notorious Garden Pests

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Deer are a part of life on South Whidbey. They are often seen wandering the roadsides, strolling the outskirts of town, and munching their way through local gardens. For newcomers to the island, deer sightings illicit delight: “They’re so cute!” But this attitude quickly changes with the first forays into gardening here on the rock.

If you don’t experience problems with deer in your landscape, count yourself lucky! For the rest of us, these cute creatures can be a real nuisance. Here are some strategies for gardening in deer country.

Choose Deer Resistant Plants

This is a first step, but we have to be honest: no plant is 100% “deer proof. Whidbey deer have been known to consume even the most thorny, stinky, and downright poisonous plants known to gardeners. From Barberry to Euphorbia, Japanese Forest Grass to Foxglove, no plant on our island seems to be safe.

Young deer, especially, are willing to try just about anything. And “try” doesn’t always mean an exploratory nibble: sometimes the critters strip several branches before deciding they don’t like it.

Here at Venture Out Nursery, we offer a list of “Deer Resistant Plants” to our customers. It includes the prickly, smelly, and toxic options mentioned above, as well as beautiful and worthy things like Russian Sage, Yarrow, Bear’s Breeches, and Hellebore. But it comes with this disclaimer: no plant is 100% deer proof. What a deer will eat may depend on the herd, the season, the location of the plant, and what other food is available nearby.

Use Barriers

Try these options to protect your landscaping from the cute invaders:

  • Build a deer-proof fence. Deer can jump up to 8 feet high, so make sure your fence is tall enough to deter them.
  • Protect tempting plants with chicken wire.
  • Protect plants with fishing line. Drive three to five wooden stakes into the ground around the plant or tree, then wrap the perimeter in fishing line, spiraling from bottom to top. You can leave about 6” between each wrap. Deer are uncomfortable ducking their heads into small spaces, so the fishing line provides an effective barrier, and, possibly, a more attractive option than chicken wire. Make sure your stakes are tall enough to protect the desired plant or tree: deer can stand on their hind legs to reach those upper limbs!

Use Repellents

Deer seem to be especially interested in new plantings, often devouring plants within the first week of them being planted. Make the first introduction a negative experience by keeping new plants well-doused with deer repellent spray. Here at Venture Out, we carry a non-toxic formula that is safe for people, pets, and wildlife. Made from hot peppers and putrescent egg solids, these sprays effectively repel deer as well as rabbits and squirrels. It is even safe to use on fruits and vegetables. Just remember to wash it off before you take a bite, so you don’t get surprised by a yucky, spicy mouthful! Reapply frequently in rainy weather.

Even Deer-Resistant Plants Need Protection During the Fall

Eating plants isn’t the only way that deer can wreck a garden. The autumn through early winter is rutting season, when the deer are mating. Male deer can do serious damage to the garden. They rub their antlers on any tree or shrub in their path in order to leave their scent and thereby define their territory and attract mates. Discourage damage to your plants by protecting them with chicken wire or fishing line during this time of year.

We hope some of these techniques prove useful in your landscape! Please visit us at the nursery for more ideas for keeping your garden beautiful despite living in deer country.

Written by Olivia Round & Tobey Nelson.

 

Learn about some of Tobey’s favorite deer resistant plants and tips in this video!

How Can You Help Your Plants Thrive During the Winter?

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Landscaping in the Pacific Northwest comes with plenty of challenges: from deer and rabbits decimating garden beds, to clay soil rotting roots, and summers without natural irrigation. Another challenge often not considered in our NW climate are the freezing temperatures in the winter. While we do have milder temperatures than much of the US, the past few years have shown a colder side to winter. Most gardeners on the island will have a hard time forgetting the snowmageddon of last February, and many are still dealing the damages caused by that late winter storm. While not everything is preventable, there are offseason tasks that help limit the damages from a sub-freezing blast.

The post-season clean up: While most people are finding more excuses to be indoors, pests and pathogens are also trying to avoid the cold. Leaf litter, cluttered branches, and fallen debris are the perfect habitat for unwanted garden visitors. Air circulation is crucial for limiting diseases. Pruning to encourage air flow between individual trees—as well as in the plant itself—is a method of prevention. Crossing and clustered branches should be pruned out in the early fall so the plant has time to seal the pruning cuts before going dormant. Leaf litter and debris should be collected out of the garden to limit the pathogens overwintering.

Mulch: Now that the garden has been cleaned, it’s time to put down a protective layer of mulch. Aged bark and compost blends add the most nutrients and provide organic material to improve the soil. Apply the mulch thickly to the beds, but take care not to suffocate the trees and shrubs by covering their crowns. The area where the trunk meets the roots demands oxygen flow, so be sure to leave a 1-2’ circumference around the base of trees and shrubs. Dormant perennials, however, can benefit from extra mulch on top of the crown. Plants that die all the way back to the ground, like agapanthus, artichokes, and joe pie weed, can have mulch added on top to protect the crown from the frost.

Sub-freezing protection: Most winters in the Pacific Northwest have sporadic freezing and thawing periods throughout the season, but hardy plants will survive without extra protection. There are times, however, when the weather forecast can show below freezing for more than a week. If this is the case, the first thing gardeners should do is water. While it might seem counter intuitive to water in the part of the country known best for its excessive rainfall in the winter, once the water freezes it will be unavailable for the plant to use. Garden beds have usually stored up enough rainfall by this time of year to not bother watering, however containers and any plants under a cover will need to be checked. If the soil is dry before the freeze, it will remain that way until the temperatures thaw it again. Be careful not to get any water on the leaves as frozen water droplets will damage evergreen foliage.

Once the containers have the proper water level, some of them might need to be protected if the freezing reaches less than 25 degrees. Containers do not protect roots as well as in garden beds, because the roots are essentially above ground. If the plants are in a ceramic container, make sure the walls of the pot are thick enough to block the frost from damaging the roots. If you have frost-proof pottery, then the walls will be thick enough. Terra Cotta and plastic are often not thick enough to protect roots in severe weather.

To help a plant’s survival, wrap the plant base in blankets, thick plastic, or surround them with mulch to add an extra layer of protection. Plastic and blankets can also be used to cover tender foliage and buds from the freeze. Some winters we have warm weather before a hard frost, so the plant is tricked into beginning to wake up for spring before getting blasted by the freeze. If new growth or flower buds are forming before the hard freeze is predicted, the plastic or blankets can help reduce the damage.

Snow: The best scenario for a week of sub-freezing temperatures is to start the week off with a snowstorm. Snow acts as an insulator that can save cold damage from occurring if it’s left in place. Restrain the urge to uncover your plants from the snow and let nature’s insulation work its magic. The only exception is heavy snow that can sometimes break off limbs. If any tree or shrub looks as if the whole limb is bent past its limit, removing the snow to release the pressure can help save the limb. Know that by doing this, you are exposing the foliage to the freeze, but potentially saving the branch from breaking under the weight of the snow.

While the tasks listed above can help prevent the damage and loss of plants in the winter, the best prevention is always plant selection. While some winters are safe for higher-zoned plants, the best insurance is still to select plants for lower zones. The Pacific Northwest is usually a USDA Zone 8, which means plants can survive around 20 degrees Fahrenheit. There are still wind chill and microclimates on the island to account for, so plants zoned for 7 or lower have the best chance of surviving extreme sub-freezing temperatures.

Like most of gardening, there is a trial and error aspect to finding the right plant selection for your particular garden. Our aim with this post is to help you give plants enduring winter the best chance to thrive in the coming spring.  

-Your friends at Venture Out