By JoAnne Skelly — Sometimes we think fall is the slowing down time of year in the landscape and garden. Personally, I find autumn to be one of my most active times for working in the yard. With cooler weather, I have so many tasks lined up. I don’t know where to begin — fertilize the lawns, shut down the garden, finish picking apples, prune trees and shrubs, decide whether to deadhead perennials or not, shut down the irrigation system, and winterize the tools and machines.
JoAnne Skelly
Besides all these tasks, fall is the perfect time for planting trees, shrubs and perennials. The soil is warm and welcoming to new plants. Even though the top couple of inches may freeze as the temperatures drop, the underlying layers will stay fairly warm and insulating for many more weeks. This means that roots can continue to grow even as the above ground plant parts go dormant. Roots rarely go dormant.
With roots growing over winter, fall planted plants actually burst into growth in the spring, long before spring planted ones do. And they get bigger faster as well. Another factor that helps autumn plants thrive is the cooler temperature, reducing stress and water needs. Finally, the prices for new plants are so much lower in the fall!
I’m waiting for a couple of hard freezes before I prune the evergreen trees. This will reduce the possibility of wood borers attacking the trees. I have a lot of pruning to do especially over and near walkways, so my tall husband doesn’t keep getting bashed by branches. In addition, I need to cut out all the up-growing water sprouts in the apples, crabapples and Amur maples to tidy up their look.
Things I won’t prune now are spring flowering shrubs such as forsythia or lilac. These were supposed to be pruned right after blooming last spring. Cutting them back now means I would cut off all the flower buds and won’t get any flowers next spring. Also, I don’t cut roses back now. Roses tend to get canker disease and/or freeze damage through the winter. If I prune now, I may not have any stems left when I cut out the canker or frost damage next spring.
Join me and don’t start relaxing just yet. Get out and redesign and replant your landscape. Clean up all the old plants in the garden to reduce diseases and pests next spring. Make your trees and shrubs look better. Then, next month kick back and appreciate how good it all looks.
— JoAnne Skelly is an Associate Professor and Extension Educator, Emerita, University of Nevada Cooperative Extension. She can be reached at skellyj@unr.edu.
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