H alloween is coming this month. You may be planning on decorating your front shrubs. We can trim them of new growth PRIOR to the decorating. Just let us know of your requests and we’ll take care of it. Please don’t wait until the last week.
The weather is finally cooling off, allowing our outdoor tasks to be a bit more comfortable. October can be a busy month for your lawn & landscaping work. If you want a NEW look for the upcoming Holidays, NOW is the time to get the changes in motion. Trim the shrubs and trees. You can plant cool season annual flowers once the temperature breaks. Put a pinch of granular fertilizer in each hole as you plant. Perennial flowers can be divided now if they have become overgrown for the area you have allocated to them. New perennials can also be planted now through early November but availability will be limited. It is also a good time to plant groundcovers and vines.
If you did not do this in September, do it in October. Winterize your lawns with the same fertilizer you have been using, preferably a 3-1-2 ratio or 4-1-2. Later this year, a pre-emergent application will assist in the control of next year’s weeds.
October through April is a great time to plant shrubs and trees. Nurseries will still have good selections and they will have more time to spend discussing your selections with you now than they will in the hectic spring planting time. Shrubs/trees planted in this time window will have more time to establish a good root structure prior to next summers heat. This is a big benefit to them. Never add soil amendments to a hole dug to plant a new tree. Trees roots are opportunistic and will simply coil up if you have created a hole filled with loose, amended soil. Backfill with the same soil you dug out and the roots will be prone to stretch out of the hole, as you want them to.
Order bulbs, or go to Home Depot/Lowes now for planting in mid-November. Tulip and hyacinth bulbs need 6 weeks in your refrigerator vegetable crisper prior to planting in late December. Bulbs in local nurseries are generally in good condition. They should be firm to the touch, not discolored or moldy. Plant them at the recommended depth; generally the bulb depth should be 3 times the diameter of the bulb. A 1-inch bulb then would be planted 3 inches deep.
Order your firewood now or you may have a problem with the supply when mid-November comes and we get our 1st frost of the year.
