Fall Landscape Care With Pollinators In Mind
By Melinda Myers
No matter where you live, investing time caring for your Landscape now will pay off with a healthier, more beautiful landscape next spring and for years to come. Incorporate the following practices into your fall maintenance to support pollinators and the plants in your landscape.
Don't rake the leaves to the curb or haul them to your municipality's composting center. Instead, handle them with your lawn mower. Shred leaves and leave them on the lawn as you mow this fall. As the leaves break down, they add organic matter to the soil and as long as you can see the grass through the leaf pieces, the lawn will be fine.
Put any extra fall leaves to work in the garden. Add shredded leaves to your compost pile or dig them into annual gardens as a soil amendment. Just dig a two-to-three-inch layer of shredded leaves into the top 12 inches of annual or new planting beds. The leaves will decompose over winter adding organic matter to the soil. By spring, your garden bed will be ready for you to finish preparing and planting.
Spread some of the fall leaves on top of the soil around permanent plants as a mulch. They help insulate the roots, conserve moisture, suppress weeds, and as they break down improve the soil. Fall mulching gives you a jump on next spring's landscape chores. It also provides winter homes for some beneficial insects and insulation for bumblebee queens, frogs, and others that overwinter in the soil.
Leave healthy perennials to stand over winter. They will add motion and texture to the landscape. The seedheads add beauty and many provide food for the birds. Hollow stems of a variety of perennials provide winter homes for many native bees and other beneficial insects. This also increases winter survival as research found perennials left standing are better able to tolerate the rigors of winter.
Be sure to cut back and dispose of any diseased or insect-infested plants. Removing these reduces the source of disease and insect pest problems in next year's garden. Use a bypass pruner to cut the plants back to just above the soil surface. Corona's XSeries Pro bypass pruner (coronatoolsusa.Com) is lightweight and professional grade with its blade ensuring smooth, clean cuts on both green and dry stems and branches.
Continue watering throughout the fall and only during the day when soil and air temperatures are at or above 40°F. Trees, shrubs and perennials suffering from drought stress in fall and early winter are more subject to root damage and subsequently insect pest and disease problems. Make sure new plantings, moisture lovers, evergreens and perennials in exposed sites are thoroughly watered when the top four to six inches are crumbly and slightly moist.
Add some new plants to the landscape this fall. The soil is warm and the air is cool, providing excellent conditions for planting and establishing trees, shrubs and perennials. Include some fall favorites like pansies, asters and mums to containers and garden beds for instant color and food for late-season pollinators. Many garden centers add healthy new plants to their inventory specifically for planting this fall.
No matter where you live or the size of your garden, get outdoors and enjoy the beauty of fall. And be sure to invest a bit of time and energy now to ensure your landscape is ready for the season ahead.
Melinda Myers has written more than 20 gardening books, including the recently released Midwest Gardener's Handbook, 2nd Edition and Small Space Gardening. She hosts The Great Courses "How to Grow Anything" instant video series and the nationally syndicated Melinda's Garden Moment TV & radio program. Myers is a columnist and contributing editor for Birds & Blooms magazine and was commissioned by Corona Tools for her expertise to write this article. Myers' website is MelindaMyers.Com.
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Along The Way: Area Bakery 'noticed' For Beautiful Exterior
North Attleboro's Whisk and Paddle Bakery is the recipient of Keep North Attleboro Beautiful's 2023 "We Noticed" award. The award is given annually to a local business with an attractive exterior landscape. Part of the bakery's exterior includes colorful flowers it has on display in boxes. The flowers were designed and installed by Attleboro Farms.
Attleboro market to celebrate dogsThe Attleboro Farmers Market will celebrate all things canine with its first ever "Dog Day of Fall" event at this Saturday's market, taking place from 9 a.M. To 1 p.M. At LaSalette Shrine, 947 Park St. The market will feature extra pet-centric vendors in addition to the usual weekly lineup of food and nonfood vendors. There will also be a mobile grooming unit and a gift basket raffle benefiting the Friends of the Attleboro Animal Shelter. The farmers market will continue weekly through Oct. 14.
Wheelchair stroll Saturday in AttleboroThe Second Annual Attleboro Wheelchair Stroll is scheduled for 10 a.M. Saturday to give able-bodied persons the perspective of those in wheelchairs. The event, which also involves those wheelchair-bound, is set to start at city hall on Park Street and end at the Attleboro Public Library on North Main Street. It's hosted by the Attleboro Commission on Disabilities. For more information, contact [email protected].
Take a selfie, win a shirtHike Attleboro is running a Selfie Scavenger Hunt through the end of the summer. Selfies can be submitted by an individual or a group and must be taken at 18 designated locations on Hike Attleboro properties. Selfie locations can be found on the city's official Instagram, @cityofattleboro. They can be submitted via email to [email protected]. The contest will run through Sept. 30, so hurry up.
Have an interesting bit of news you'd like to see mentioned in the Along the Way column? Email it to Natasha Connolly at [email protected].
Consumer Tips: Fall Landscaping Refresh
Fall is a season of vivid colors and is a perfect time to spend mornings and evenings out in your yard sipping on something warm while bundled up in a light jacket. With a few great landscape ideas, your yard can become an autumn oasis.
Fall FoundationThe very first thing that you should know about landscaping in the fall is that you should focus on the colors and textures of your project. Even the smallest of spaces can look quite large with a few well placed large shrubs and small trees. Focus on layering trees and shrubs to give the impression that your yard stretches on for miles. Japanese maples are great for just this occasion.
It's also a good idea to plant a few evergreens around the edges of your yard. They're great for privacy and for giving the rest of your landscape a lush backdrop. One word of advice with evergreens is that it's best that you select those that will grow to the right height for your lawn. For instance, an Australian pine only reaches about 15 feet tall and eight feet wide while a fernspray false cypress reaches ten feet tall and four feet wide.
Paint Your HomeDon't only focus on your yard when it comes to landscaping. The fall time is a great time to give the exterior a fresh coat of paint for $1,500 to $3,600. If the paint on your home is fine, consider taking care of any areas of chipped paint that you might have and repairing your siding for $250 to $919. It would be a shame to have a spectacular landscape only to have a home that's in desperate need of a new coat of paint.
While you're at it, you can also add a few plant or window boxes to your home. Some of the advantages of including such boxes with your landscaping design are:
While you're picking out your plant selection for fall landscaping, pay special attention to plant habits. What this means is focus on the shapes that plants have as they grow. Some have a narrow, upstanding shape while others develop a gentle downward curve. Consider mixing and matching plant habits to give your yard a hint of intrigue and allure.
If you want to add a pattern to your fall wonderland, repeating plant shapes is the way to go. If there are taller trees in the background around your yard, you can copy those shapes to blend the background and foreground together better. To break up the pattern a bit and add some interest, use repeated plant shapes but change up the colors here and there. Great options for color include blue-silver spruce, blue-green pine, and deep green arborvitae.
Don't Forget About HardscapingMake sure that you leave some room for hardscaping this fall season. Sidewalks, rock formations, pavers, fountains, and stone retainer walls are all great options. If you do decide to balance your soft landscaping with hard landscaping, go for something that is functional, offers safety or security, and adds to the overall beauty of your property. Two great things about adding a fountain — which costs anywhere between $964 and $4,072 to install — is that it can make you feel more secluded and it also blocks out noise coming from nearby streets.
If you find yourself hard-pressed to make a decision regarding the type of hardscaping to include, stone is a popular choice because it doesn't take too much work to take care of and fits in well with nearly every style of landscape. Should you be able to find a type of stone that is native to your particular area, all the better. Don't be afraid to include more than one type of stone to add variety.
Keeping Up AppearancesNo matter how much you might enjoy the sight of leaves drifting lazily through the air as they fall from the trees, that's no excuse for you not to rake up the fallen leaves in your yard. When you go out into your yard, those fallen leaves can become slippery and pose as a safety risk to you, your family, and your guests. Something else to think about is that those fallen leaves can be concealing something that requires your attention, such as a sidewalk that needs to be repaired. Take out some time every week to rake up your lawn.
You'll also want to make sure that you keep up with pool maintenance during the chillier months of the year. Just because you don't plan on swimming in your pool doesn't mean that you don't have to keep the chemicals balanced and the water free of bugs, leaves, and various debris. To make things easier on you, clean your pool whenever you rake up the leaves in your yard.
A Plant for Every SeasonTo save yourself some time and money on landscaping, include plants that look fantastic in your yard no matter what season it may be. Great examples include:
Before you throw away all of those leaves that you're raking up, think about making them into a compost pile. Compost piles don't take up much space and make great fuel for your plants and soil for next year. Besides ground leaves, you can also add grass clippings, vegetable trimmings, small branches and sticks, and loose flower petals.
Before you trade your shorts and flip-flops for jackets and boots, spend some time out in your yard developing your fall landscape. Rather than traveling to see the most beautiful autumn locations, you can take a look outside your window and admire the majesty of the changing seasons.
