Fall Gardening Ideas

As you decorate for fall, feature lots and lots of your favorite gourd, in colors from white to orange, and in all shapes and sizes. Pumpkins can be carved into Jack-o’-lanterns, painted or heaped together in an artful jumble.

Use pumpkins from your own garden, if you’ve grown a crop of them. If not, try planting a few next year.

For autumnal curb appeal, pile on the mums, pumpkins and flowering kale. Use straw bale as a base. Accent it with unusual gourds for a display that will last through Thanksgiving.

You can place pumpkins and seasonal flowers on both sides of the steps of your porch. Don’t have a porch? You can decorate your stoop or balcony with an arrangement of pumpkins and mums.

For Halloween, add some spooky elements, such as ghosts and Jack-o’-lanterns, to your outdoor space. Once Halloween is over, you can take down the scary stuff, leaving a harvest-themed display.

As the weather cools off, working outside is much more pleasant than in the heat of summer. Focus on fall gardening chores to get your outdoor space in great shape.

Raking leaves is just the beginning. Fall is also the perfect time to install new trees and shrubs, overseed and fertilize the lawn, prune trees and shrubs, mulch garden beds, put away hoses and organize the tool shed.

Every holiday needs a mascot, and the scarecrow just might be the one for this season. Purchase a ready-made scarecrow, or make your own with repurposed materials. Settle your scarecrow in a harvest display created with hay bales embellished with pumpkins and seasonal flowers like marigolds and mums.

This fall, you can also think small when it comes to gardening. Create a miniature or fairy garden for your own enjoyment or to delight those who pass by. Design a tiny landscape that celebrates the harvest. Or create a spooky spot perfect for Halloween. A scary fairy garden might include a Venus flytrap, a skeleton and a hypertufa hand rising from the earth.

Sometimes Pinterest can motivate as well as inspire. In this case, get motivated to install low maintenance, space-saving, raised garden beds. They are a very efficient way to grow vegetables and cut flowers. This garden style cuts down on pests and weeds, too. If you’ve always wanted raised garden beds, put them on your to-do list this fall.