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FeedBefore the Snow Flies
Leaves raked? You’re just getting started
By Bonnie Blodgett
Photo by judy white / gardenphotos.com
Some people cut down their perennials in fall; others remove them in spring. I do both. I leave a few that have nice seed heads—coneflower, baptisia, sedum—to add color and contrast against winter snow. The rest I slash at ground level and haul away in my pickup. At the same time, I dig up any volunteers whose presence I don’t appreciate. This usually means enough non-sterile catmint to cover the new Vikings stadium—should it ever get built and the NFL decides players need a softer playing surface. I don’t fertilize at this time of year; tender leaf growth will only be killed by the first cold snap.
I use an electric mulching mower (that has only chewed up one extension cord so far) to cut the many groundcovers I grow, including a perennial catmint that inhabits a dry, sunny, east-facing slope where nothing else but weeds will grow. In fall, the mower cuts off the last of the dead and dying flowers to prevent catmint seeds from germinating all over the neighborhood. I use a plug-in hedge trimmer to give the buckthorn hedge its final de-seeding haircut.
Fall leaf cleanup involves raking and bagging leaves, then laying them on garden beds for insulation. In May, I shred last year’s leaves with the mulching mower and put them back on the beds to decompose and improve the soil. The leaves already on the beds stay there. In spring, they get raked off, shredded, and put back on with the lawn leaves. Any extra leaves and debris go to the city compost site. They used to go into my compost heap, until most of it became a vegetable garden last spring.
In the fall, I run a file over the edges of my shovels and spades to sharpen them, and then I shove them into a big bucket of sand for the winter. (It keeps them both orderly and rust-free.) Tools with moving parts get cleaned and oiled. I’ve started using bicycle-chain cleaners for the job. Look for the tall, metal can with a long, thin, straw-like applicator at your local bike shop.
By the time you read this, my tomato and melon crop will be history. I had a bumper crop of tomatoes this year, but the melons were a disappointment. The neighborhood raccoons crashed through the wire fence and gorged themselves on my melons the instant they began turning sweet. Very often, these critters would get so full they’d leave several intact melons lying around in the alley with only a few claw marks as evidence of the melons’ contamination.
We lost a few tomatoes to the raccoons, too, but we harvested most of them before the animals got interested. Unfortunately, melons don’t ripen as well indoors as tomatoes do. They need all the time on the vine they can get. Since tomatoes must be rotated, the plan is to give them the melon patch this spring and let their current plot lie fallow until summer 2009. If I were a better person, I’d have canning on the list of fall chores. Sorry, not this year.
Another fall chore is pruning. I don’t touch the early spring bloomers (lilacs, honeysuckles, crabapples, magnolia, and the like); this would remove their flower buds. But any shrub that blooms on new wood is a candidate. I trim evergreens and thin climbing roses to remove canes that won’t be good producers, and I cut down any clematis vines that don’t flower right away in spring. Most clematis varieties flower on new wood and benefit greatly from a hard pruning.
I don’t plan to mess with the ‘Engelmann’ ivy. I’m not concerned it will rot the shingles—this is the whole point. I’ve been looking for an excuse to re-shingle the roof with cedar shakes. The ivy should accelerate the timetable and look great in the interim. However, if you have ivy creeping and don’t wish to replace the shingles any time soon, fall is the time to prune ruthlessly. Or, at least cut the ivy away from the shingles so accumulated debris won’t damage them.
Then there is my least favorite fall chore: cleaning containers. This year, all of them will be emptied and cleaned if it kills me. Which it probably will. But I know if I fail to scrape out the dirt and roots and move the containers to a warmer place, the soil will expand come spring and crack the pots. Hardier containers stay outside, but I turn them over to avoid damage from accumulating water.
The fountain gets unplugged, emptied, and covered at about the same time the porch furniture comes inside. I always keep the table and chairs on the back porch about a month longer than I need them. Keeping them out there even if it’s too cold to sit in them makes winter seem a little less interminable.
How could I forget the tubers? I gave up on dahlias after leaving a dozen tubers I’d laboriously dug up and put in plastic bags in an outdoor urn. But I experimented with six new dahlias this year, and I can’t bear to part with them. So tuber removal is a must. November is not too late. Don’t cut off the eyes and don’t bother with elaborate packing. They’ll do fine. Just get them inside!
Anything left to do? Yes, the bulbs! I forget to plant the bulbs every year. This makes me furious because I didn’t forget to buy them. So I cram several hundred bulbs into the frozen earth. This eases the immediate frustration a bit, but it doesn’t get me any tulips. But, then again, there’s always next year.
Bonnie Blodgett publishes The Garden Letter and is writing a book about smell.
11 ISSUES (1 YEAR)
