Simple ways to save money while you garden
If your lawn struggled through summer heat, your first instinct may be to grab a bag of fertilizer as soon as the weather cools down. That’s not necessarily wrong, but cool-season lawn fertilizer timing matters almost as much as what’s inside the bag. Grasses such as tall fescue, Kentucky bluegrass, perennial ryegrass, and fine fescue…
A lawn that looks thin after a long summer doesn’t necessarily need to be torn out and started over. If plenty of healthy turf remains, overseeding thin grass can fill bare patches, improve density, and help crowd out future weeds for considerably less money than installing new sod. Timing matters, though, because grass seedlings need…
A drip irrigation system can save hours of hand-watering during summer, but leaving water trapped inside vulnerable components all winter can turn that convenience into a spring repair project. When water freezes, it expands, potentially damaging valves, filters, fittings, pressure regulators, backflow devices, and other parts that weren’t designed to spend winter full of ice….
Cool October weather can fool you into thinking the watering can and garden hose are finished for the year. Newly planted trees and shrubs tell a different story because their limited root systems still need moisture even after summer heat disappears and leaves begin dropping. University of Minnesota notes that new plantings require regular, consistent…
“Leave the leaves” has become popular garden advice, and there are good reasons not to send every fallen leaf to the landfill. Leaves provide organic matter, nutrients, mulch, and habitat, so the old idea that every yard should be spotless by November deserves reconsideration. But your lawn is one place where the advice needs some…
Cannas can make an ordinary garden look tropical all summer, with huge leaves and brightly colored flowers that sometimes continue until frost. The problem arrives when temperatures plunge, because these heat-loving plants aren’t equipped to handle frozen ground in colder climates. Their underground rhizomes can be saved and replanted, however, which means a little fall…
Dahlias can bloom spectacularly right into fall, which makes it painful to watch freezing weather turn a thriving plant black almost overnight. The flowers may be finished, but the valuable part of the plant is still underground: the cluster of tubers capable of producing next year’s plants. In colder climates, those fleshy tubers generally can’t…
Hostas put on one of the best foliage displays in a shade garden all summer, but they aren’t particularly attractive once cold weather arrives. After a hard frost, those broad green leaves can quickly collapse into a yellow, brown or slimy mass lying over the soil. That’s normal: hostas are herbaceous perennials that go dormant…
When the first hard frost turns a perennial garden brown, grabbing the pruners can feel like the obvious next step. But those dead-looking coneflowers, asters, and ornamental grasses may still be doing important work long after their flowers disappear. Standing stems can shelter overwintering insects, seed heads can feed birds, and dried plants can give…