Top 10 Fall Lawn & Garden Tasks to Put on Your To-Do List

As the feel of fall sets in and a welcomed crispness in the air surrounds us, it’s time to tackle some lawn and garden tasks. Taking care of these top ten items helps prepare your yard for winter, and it will take off quicker next spring.

One of our goals at Providence Nursery is to help you build the yard of your dreams. This includes taking care of your lawn and garden as a whole, not just the plants and trees you’ve bought from us! 

Clean Out Garden & Flower Beds

While it may be tempting to leave plants in your beds until spring, removing them in the fall is best. If you leave this material, it can harbor diseases and insects. Plus, let’s face it, removing soggy, moldy plants in the spring is no fun.

Make sure to clean out annual plants, including everything grown in containers. Dispose of dead or diseased plant material instead of putting it in the compost pile.

Cut Back Select Perennial Plants

There are many plants you can trim before winter, but there are some that you need to avoid cutting back.

Go ahead and tackle these perennials. Cutting the foliage back stops vegetative growth and starts moving resources to the roots for winter.

• Ornamental grasses, including our popular Black Mondo Grass, Hameln Dwarf Fountain Grass, and Overdam Feather Reed Grass.
• Plants that grow from bulbs or tubers, including daylilies, bearded iris, and gladiolas.
• Perennials without woody stems such as bee balm, peonies, blanket flowers, hostas, penstemon, columbine, and hollyhock.

When it comes to pruning flowering perennial plants, you need to understand how they bloom. If they bloom on old wood, you won’t have flowers next spring if you cut plants back in the fall. But if they bloom on new wood, they’re okay to trim.

• Prune panicle and smooth hydrangeas and group 3 clematis (including Providence Nursery’s Quick Fire Fab, Limelight, Limelight Prime, and Little Lime Punch) to promote spring growth and bud development.
• Avoid pruning groups 1 and 2 clematises and bigleaf, oakleaf, and climbing hydrangeas.

Prune Established Trees and Shrubs

Pruning trees in the fall is a delicate dance. If you prune too early, you will trigger new growth that is easily damaged during the winter. So, if you decide to prune, wait until the leaves have fallen, signaling dormancy.

Always prune out dead or diseased limbs or branches in the fall and anything that poses a hazard to your home or property.

Plant New Trees and Shrubs

If you’re looking to add new trees or shrubs to your landscape, fall is the perfect time to plant! You can safely plant deciduous varieties until about a month before the ground freezes.

 Ideas for fall plantings include the following great specimens from Providence Nursery:

• Crimson Pygmy Barberry with its stunning, deep red leaves.
• Emerald 'n Gold Euonymus brings gorgeous year-round color to your landscape with its yellow and white variegated foliage.
• Royal Purple Smoke Tree tolerates poor, rocky soils, brightening your yard with its deep purple foliage.
• Alberta Spruce with its cone-shaped dense evergreen growth.
• King’s Gold Cypress, whose golden thread-like foliage pops against darker green foundation plantings.
• Mugho Pine grows slowly, making it a perfect addition to rock gardens or mixed groupings with broadleaf plants.

Give Your Bulbs Some Attention

Setting aside some time to tend to your bulbs is also important.

• Fall is the perfect time to plant tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, and other bulbs that bloom early in the season. These plants need cool winter temperatures to trigger flowering.
• Dig up tender bulbs like dahlias, cannas, gladiolas, and elephant ears and store them in a cool, dry place for the winter. These tropical plants are not tolerant of cold temperatures and won’t survive the winter, especially in northern growing zones.
• Divide any mass bulb plantings that have grown too thick or have outgrown their space. Get rid of any rotten or damaged bulbs, replanting only healthy ones.

Replenish Mulch to Act as Insulation

Spread a fresh layer of mulch around shrubs and trees. A couple of inches of shredded leaves or wood chips help insulate the soil, protecting roots from temperature extremes. Keep the mulch slightly away from the trunks to prevent disease or rot.

Spruce Up a Lackluster Lawn by Seeding

Is your grass looking a little thin, or do you have bare patches that need reseeding? If so, this is the perfect time for planting cool-season grass seeds. Cooler temperatures paired with fall rains help increase germination speed and help your new grass become established before winter.

 Exactly when you plant depends upon your climate and where you’re located. The ideal time for planting cool-season grasses is when the daytime air temperatures are 60 to 75°F, and soil temperatures are approximately 50 to 60°F.

Mulch Leaves Instead of Raking

Fall leaf clean-up is often a big task for homeowners and one that you shouldn’t overlook. While you may be tempted to let the leaves sit on the grass all winter in the hopes they break down, it’s not good for your lawn to leave them. When leaves smother the entire lawn, they block sunlight from reaching the blades and cause the grass to thin.

Instead of spending hours or days raking all the leaves, you can save time using your lawn mower to mulch them into small pieces. The smaller pieces allow sunlight to reach the grass, and soil microbes will work on breaking the material down.

 Apply a Fall Fertilizer

Your grass needs nutrients throughout the growing season, and giving it a boost of food in the fall is one of the most critical times.

You want to apply a high-nitrogen fertilizer such as 25-5-5 or use a balanced formula like 12-12-12 approximately six weeks before your first expected frost. This addition of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium helps the grass recover and build stamina to get through the winter.

• Nitrogen increases your turf’s density and helps it green-up quicker in the spring.
• Potassium improves your grass’ tolerance to cold weather and other environmental stressors.
• Phosphorus stimulates root growth and helps store carbohydrates within the plant to use during dormancy.

Keep Everything Well-Watered

People often think they can stop watering once temperatures drop in the fall, especially with dormancy around the corner. The truth, though, is you should keep watering everything—shrubs, trees, perennial plants, and grass—until the ground freezes.

All your plants need adequate water to continue photosynthesis and start storing resources to use through the winter. Well-watered plants also withstand winter stresses better.

Need Some Help with Fall Planting Ideas?

As an online plant nursery based in Oregon, our mission as Providence Nursery is to enrich the world through the cultivation of beautiful plants. As one of the best growing regions in the country, we’re honored to grow the healthiest and happiest plants that you’ll find anywhere. When you order from Providence Nursery, you’re getting only the highest quality plants direct from our farm in the prime Willamette Valley.

If you’re interested in ordering nursery plants from our team, we’d love to help you make your landscaping and gardening dreams a reality. We hand-select only the strongest, healthiest, and most beautiful plants for our customers. Explore our available plants for sale, and contact us to get started!