Although I used to enjoy working long hours in the garden, I find I no longer have the time and – to be honest – the energy to spend a whole day working on my knees. It is better for me if I spend an hour or so every other day on mundane tasks such as weeding. Oh, I love planting new purchases or moving plants in the spring and I easily lose track of time when engaged in fun activities such as those. Doing actual chores is less fun and it works better when I parcel boring duties out in little bits. Or I sometimes will tackle an area of the garden and do whatever I can get done in the time allowed.
So I found myself earlier this month with time to work in my garden on a pleasant day. It was a lovely day, puffy white clouds drifting slowly by, no wind, sun breaks. In a couple of hours, I had accomplished quite a lot and got a good start on my Fall Clean-Up.
My first task was to cut back the remnants of the poor, pitiful hosta. Regular readers will remember the slug issue I have had this year. So the poor dears looked sad, although according to the calendar and the weather forecasts, they should have lasted a few more weeks. But really, what was the point? Most of them were skeletons of themselves, looking more like lace than a leaf. “Lace-leaved hosta” was what I had taken to calling them when showing visitors around the garden. So I cut them to the ground, made sure each had a marker of some sort so I could find them in the spring, and was done worrying about the slugs for a while.
Secondly, I cut back the browning flowers of the Euphorbia. By doing this now, they will put out new flowers, perhaps as early as December when not much else is blooming. I do take care to wear long sleeves, long pants and gloves when doing this chore as the sap that runs when any part of this plant is cut can cause a mild dermatitis.
I also cut the lady ferns to the ground as their fronds had almost all gone brown. The sword ferns still looked good as did the shield ferns, so I left those alone until later. In fact, the sword ferns won’t get cut back until next March just before their fiddleheads start to unfurl. That way the base of the plant is protected from excessive rain and maybe cold weather over the winter.
Roses are also left alone for now except to deadhead the spent blooms. I have had roses as late as October, so I will wait until they go dormant at the end of that month or maybe even November to prune them to knee height. They will get a second pruning in mid- to late- February which will stimulate new growth for the spring. Some winters have been so mild that they break dormancy in January, and may not even go dormant. That means they will need a good dose of fertilizer in the spring because they have been feeding from the soil all year long.
I also don’t prune any trees or shrubs in the fall although I will cut off dead branches at any time of the year. Pruning in the fall would only spur them on to new growth which could be disastrous if we do happen to get a cold winter. That would be too much of a shock, especially for Japanese maples. Those will get pruned once I know they are dormant, usually in January or February. It is certainly easier to prune them when they don’t have any leaves as you can see the form of the tree and can adjust your pruning accordingly. Most Japanese maples don’t need to be pruned at all unless their growth habit is a weeping style. And weeping Japanese maples don’t need pruning every year anyway so pruning lightly every other year – or maybe even every three years – should be plenty.
Most annuals will be fading once the nights start to cool, so they can be removed to the compost pile and their pots can be cleaned and stored. September is too early for me to put away the gardening tools for the season, though, and I will also wait a few more weeks to pull in the garden art and patio furniture for the winter. We get too many nice days in late September and early October and having just a little more gardening to do gives me a good excuse to be outside on those warm, sunny days. Or maybe I will even sit in the lovely golden autumn sun for a bit.
Spending a couple of hours at a time in the garden is good for me on any day, and by only doing a little work, I don’t get too tired to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Instead, at the end of the allotted time, I have time to relax on the patio with a glass of iced tea and revel in a job well – and easily – done.
Comments