Fall Gardening Tips for Your Yard: Tips for Fall Gardening

These tips will enable you to take care of, enjoy and beautify your yard and garden, as well as incorporate the excitement, joy and beauty of fall holidays, like Halloween and Thanksgiving.

Select a knowledgeable gardener

Selecting a knowledgeable gardener to help you coordinate an autumn, as well as a holiday theme for your yard and garden is important. Incorporating new, fresh ideas and colors is usually a good idea. Create a fall, winter, spring and summer plan. Fall colors include red, orange, gold, brown and various shades of green. Plan the location for your holiday display. Work around that central location using garden produce, flowers and plants from your yard or garden. Dried flowers work well, as do mums, pumpkins, squash and corn for Halloween and Thanksgiving. Experiment with solar lighting, too.

Protect your plants from winter

Three aspects to protecting plants from pending frost include drainage, mulching and composting. Drainage may not be a problem but in areas like Maryland, Virginia and Washington D.C, it may be, so allow natural drainage with normal watersheds, as much as possible. Create drainage for your yard or garden with tiles or dig a drainage ditch. Allow a pond to form in a low-lying area. It can be pretty,  with plants like lily pads and gold fish.

Mulching plants includes protecting bushes, shrubs and plants from the ravages of winter, as well as enhancing drainage. Cut back or remove plants that are unsightly or dying down. Use them to mulch other shrubs, plants or rose bushes. They will absorb water, as well as build up and add nutrition to the soil. Dig them deep into the soil. Cover the area you are mulching with top soil. Leaves and bark make excellent mulch and are rich in nutrients.

Compost whatever you cannot use as mulch. It will provide rich, new soil for the spring. Build your own wooden composting box or purchase one from a local nursery. Take advantage of the compost from your garden vegetables or house, as well.

Collect seeds

Pick and dry seeds in the sun and store them in paper envelopes, noting pertinent information you need for the future. Share them with others.

Select new bulbs, plants and shrubs

Watch for new bulbs, plants and shrubs for the spring, making certain that the soil, drainage and lighting conditions are appropriate. Purchase patio stones, rocks, gravel or sand to fill in the low-lying areas. Stone or wood retaining walls may prove helpful, too. 

Begin to plan for the coming year. You may already have ideas for something new, different and unusual. Check spring garden magazines and catalogs, or go online and look for suggestions.

Reflect on the beauty of the winter, spring and summer

Recall how you took care of your yard and garden in other years. Take photos each year and let the season changes work for you in your yard and garden.

For anyone interested in a yard and garden magazine, Month by Month Gardening in the Mid-Atlantic may offer some excellent suggestions, too.