Sunny, mild fall days can make it easy to forget that winter is just around the corner and that many important yard and garden tasks still need attention. Emphasis is a combination of cleaning and getting plantings ready for winter. The clock is ticking and time is getting short, particularly in northern Wisconsin.
Yard and garden clean-up is top priority. This includes dead vegetable and flowering annual plants and piles of leaves fallen from trees. Rather than cutting them down, many perennials and ornamental grasses can remain standing until spring. Benefits include ornamental value, especially with grasses, but also potential food for wild birds, habitat for beneficial insects, and providing some protection of the base of plants over winter.
Backyard composting helps solve the issue of how to deal with accumulating spent plant material and the finished product has future use in improving garden soils. The basic rules are simple; mix brown plant material, such as all the fallen leaves and dead plants, with green material, such as grass clippings or green leaves. Chopping or shredding materials speeds up the process. Provide some air by turning the pile and keep the moisture level close to that of a wrung-out sponge. Many types of compost bin structures can be made.
There is still time to plant spring-flowering bulbs, and sooner the better. Ideally bulbs will develop roots in the soil yet this fall. Over the course of winter, they will get the necessary cold treatment to ensure brilliant blooms in spring. Also, do not forget to tend to summer bulb plantings, including gladiolus, caladium, and cannas. These need to be dug and stored for winter, not left to freeze in the soil.
Depending on where you are in Wisconsin, if soil conditions are dry, landscape plantings will benefit from being watered the remainder of this fall. Evergreens are at the top of the list of plants needing adequate soil moisture before winter (now until the ground freezes). However, do not forget about including deciduous trees and shrubs, groundcovers, and fruit crops if fall rains do not provide adequate moisture for the soil.
Mid fall is not the ideal time for pruning most trees or shrubs. For shrubs that bloom in spring, it is best to wait until right after flowering in spring. Pruning roses is also better in spring and focuses on removing tissue that dies back over winter. Waiting until spring is optimum timing for most evergreens. It also may be best to wait until late winter or early spring, after the coldest temperatures have passed, for dormant pruning of deciduous trees and fruit trees.
Get more answers to lawn, landscape, and garden questions at go.wisc.edu/GardenQuestions.
Bruce Spangenberg is a horticulture outreach specialist with UW-Madison Division of Extension.
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