Simple ways to save money while you garden
Those empty flowerpots sitting beside the garage may look like one fall chore you can safely postpone until spring, but freezing weather can turn an expensive container into a pile of cracked pottery. The problem isn’t simply cold temperatures; moisture that gets into porous materials can freeze, expand, and damage the pot as temperatures fluctuate….
By October, it is tempting to look at a fading garden and declare weed season officially over. Unfortunately, chickweed, henbit, dandelions, bindweed, and other winter annual or perennial weeds may have very different plans, and ignoring them now can mean considerably more work next spring. The University of Illinois notes that fall is an especially…
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…
When cold weather arrives, gardeners often reach for extra mulch with a simple assumption: if a little insulation is good, a thick blanket must be better. Unfortunately, piling on too much can create its own problems, from trapping excessive moisture to reducing the oxygen reaching plant roots. The ideal winter mulch depth also isn’t identical…
By October, a garden can look like it’s winding down, but one of the best opportunities for inexpensive spring color is actually happening underground. Tulips, daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, and many other spring-blooming bulbs are planted in fall so they can establish roots and receive the cold exposure they need before emerging months later. Gardeners who…
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…