Fall is one of our favorite times in the garden! The leaf shows never get old, long-sleeve weather is back, and there is usually a ton of ecological activity happening in the autumn months.
Fall is also an important time when it comes to caring for your landscape.
Below, we’ll share what maintenance tasks have the highest impact during a Fall Cleanup as well as some simple ways you can adjust your maintenance strategy to benefit pollinators.
Asters are great candidates for fall dividing and transplanting in the garden
Dividing and Transplanting
While the above-ground bits of plants enter dormancy during the fall months, the world of roots is alive and extremely active during fall and winter.
During the fall, plants take all the energy they captured from months of photosynthesis and send it down into their roots. This biological timing makes the fall a great time to move plants around, because they’ll quickly repair root damage and have a strong base underneath them for the upcoming spring.
Many perennial plants will clump and spread over time. Dividing and transplanting is a fantastic way to jumpstart that process and turn your garden into your personal nursery.
Plants that respond well to dividing include Coneflower, Chelone, Aster, Goldenrod, and anything else with a dense root system. Avoid transplanting or dividing plants with deep taproots such as Butterfly Weed and Baptisia.
Our Land Organics uses electric landscape equipment to assist with fall leaf management
Leaf Management
While traditional landscape practice has been to remove leaves from a property in the name of tidiness and aesthetics, continuing research is unveiling just how valuable leaves are to the garden.
From creating habitat for pollinators to building healthy soil, leaves are a huge asset.
That said, large amounts of fallen leaves need to be managed or they will become a nuisance and may even prevent perennials from emerging in the spring. How then, do we balance aesthetics and ecological value when performing a Fall Cleanup?
At Our Land Organics, we aim to leave most, if not all, of the leaves in our client’s yards in one form or another. We start by shredding them up into small pieces with an electric mower, and then we disperse the finely shredded leaves in several strategic ways that do our clients’ yards an ecological service without things looking unkempt or messy.
This leaf material makes for a great winter mulch, a great fertilizer for lawn areas, and great habitat for pollinators in any out-of-sight backyard areas.
Deer Protection
Another essential Fall Cleanup task is protecting young trees from deer damage.
While deer will browse on a garden throughout the year, the worst damage they can cause comes during the rutting season. From mid-October to mid-December, male deer are shedding their antlers, and they will rub against younger trees as they rut.
Unfortunately, once a tree’s bark is damaged from rutting, the tree will never be able to repair itself. We have seen many promising trees struck down in the fall by deer.
The best way to protect your trees is to install metal deer cages around your young trees in the fall. You can leave these cages up year-round or remove them in the spring, once rutting season has ended.
Goldenrod is a stunning fall bloomer that offers late-season interest and ecological benefit
Assessing Fall Bloomers
Another great Fall Cleanup task is to simply walk around your yard and notice what is blooming. If there aren’t many blooms in your yard in the fall, it’s worth thinking about adding more fall blooming plants to your yard.
Fall blooms are essential for pollinators, who are trying to consume as much nectar as possible to prepare for overwintering. While many nectar sources are available during the summer months, the shoulder seasons oftentimes leave pollinators hungry.
If there is not a lot blooming in your yard during the fall months, consider adding some late-season interest, such as Goldenrod, Chelone, or native grasses and sedges. These plants offer a late-season seed source to birds and overwintering habitat to pollinators.
Spent seedheads offer a valuable late-season food source for birds. Photo Credit: F.D. Richards