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Arbor Day
Dale Bumpers College
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Gardening CalendarCrisp, cool mornings often turn into warm afternoons, but fall is definitely here. Fall is a great time to garden in Arkansas, with plenty of options. Harvesting pumpkins and gourds, to summer vegetables if they were well tended or replanted, to ornamental seeds, October is harvest season. Leaves are beginning to fall, so it is also the perfect time to replenish your compost pile. Bulbs are there to be planted, and many perennials benefit from fall division. You can also plant your winter seasonal color. Grab your shovel and your work gloves and start gardening. How well your garden goes to bed for the season can predict in many ways how healthy it will be by next growing season. When cleaning up the vegetable or annual flower beds, don’t add diseased or insect infested plants to the compost pile, but simply worn out plant materials are great additions. While compost piles do get hot in the center, most home compost piles aren’t uniformly hot throughout, and disease organisms and insect eggs, may not get killed out. You don’t want to add them back to your garden next season. Once you have harvested everything in the vegetable garden, consider mulching the space for the winter, or growing a cover crop. Leaving the soil fallow all winter invites winter weeds which you have to contend with before planting next spring. Roses had a pretty good year, depending on the care you gave them and the type of roses you grow. Hybrid tea roses that were not sprayed were heavily plagued by blackspot disease early in the growing season. Many of the plants defoliated by midsummer and now have few to any leaves left. Make sure you rake under these plants, removing all the fallen leaves and old mulch as well. Add a layer of fresh mulch and let the plants rest until next spring. Blackspot disease rarely kills a plant in one or two seasons, but it doesn’t lend to the aesthetics of the garden either. If your hybrid tea roses were well tended: sprayed, fertilized and watered, they are still blooming and will continue to bloom until a heavy frost. No more fertilizer this late in the season, but do watch for diseases. The more environmentally friendly roses like the Knock-outs, Flower Carpet and New Dawn roses are still blooming without the addition of pesticide sprays. These roses are much more carefree in the garden, however not as showy in a vase. Fall color choices abound right now. Whether you are simply putting a pumpkin on the front porch, or planting mums, add color to your garden. Pumpkins and gourds can be grouped together to add color to mum and pansy plantings. If you choose blemish free fruits with a stem attached, they can last for months in the garden. Mums are perennials, but many treat them like annuals, tossing them after they finish their display. If you do grow them as perennials, remember they need to be divided in the spring, and regularly pinched throughout the season to keep them full and bushy when in bloom in the fall. Growers today do such a good job with this, that I leave the growing to them and buy new plants every fall. If your summer bedding plants are still thriving, you don’t have to dig them all up, but do begin to intersperse winter color. Pansies, violas, snapdragons, flowering kale, flowering cabbage, dianthus, dusty miller, parsley and cilantro can all be planted now and should grow all winter long. This is the month to decide if you are going to keep all of the tropical flowering plants growing on your patio or deck, or sacrifice them to Mother Nature when the first killing frost occurs. If the choice is to keep them, now decide where you will keep them. If you plan to move them inside your house, make the move very soon. The closer the inside conditions are to the outside conditions, the easier the transition for your plants. If you simply want to keep them alive in your garage or crawlspace, they can continue to grow outdoors until a frost is imminent. Make sure you clean them up before making the move, but do very little pruning. Regardless of where they vacation for the winter, the conditions will not be ideal (unless you own a greenhouse) and they will die back some. They need a little wiggle room to be able to shed leaves and die back. If you have already pruned them severely, there isn’t much more to go. This is also the time to move your houseplants back inside as well. Don’t be alarmed if you see a few yellowing leaves or some wilting. Inside conditions have lower light, more constant temperatures and very little humidity. Cut back on how much you water them, and do monitor for insect pests. Once inside a closed environment, they can quickly multiply and spread from plant to plant. Lawns still need to be mowed, but the growth has slowed on the warm season grasses (Bermuda, Zoysia, St. Augustine and Centipede). If you have a shady yard and need tall fescue, get it seeded or preferably sodded now. If growing from seed, you need to get it up before all the leaves really begin to fall in earnest. Sodding is definitely a quicker start and gives more instant results, but it does cost more. Warm season grasses simply need mowing; no more fertilization. It is also getting a bit late in the season to worry about summer weeds. October is often a transition month from growth to dormancy, so just water and mow at a higher setting.
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University of Arkansas • Division of Agriculture |
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