Garden Center at Bowling Green #2318

When a cool day breezes in, take advantage of it to do outdoor maintenance and a second round of planting. Now is a great time to get fall flowers and flower bulbs in the ground. Neaten up your trees and bushes, too, with pole saws and chainsaws. Read on for more on fall planting, fall garden maintenance, and how to transition to your fall lawn and garden.

Patch or Fertilize Your Lawn
Fix bald spots on your lawn by overseeding them. Autumn is a great time to fill in brown, dead, or bare places in your yard. However, you should try to keep fallen leaves off freshly seeded areas. New grass seed needs air, sun, and water to grow, and leaf litter can block out the air and sunlight it needs to germinate.

If you're in a northern climate, prepare your cool-season grass for the fall with lawn fertilizer. Rent an aerator to aerate your lawn before adding fertilizer to get those nutrients down near the roots quickly. An edger gives extra polish to the perimeter of your yard. Water your cool-season lawn regularly and tend to any pesky weeds that show up. It'll need different maintenance than warm-season grass, which goes dormant as the weather cools. Taper down watering on warm-season lawns.

Fall Planting
Many colorful fall flowers are annuals, like marigolds, so they last until the end of the year. Hardier plants, like pansies and chrysanthemums, should return in the spring. Always check the plant tag for info. If you want your mums to grow back next year, the label should call them chrysanthemum morifolium, garden mums, or hardy mums. If it says they're a florist or annual mum, you'll have flowers this year only.

Succulents and shrubs also blossom in the fall, especially if they're kept in pots or already well-established in the ground. Succulent planters allow for easier upkeep of sensitive succulents. Customize the soil to fit these desert plants, as they need a sandy succulent soil mixture.

For shrubs, look after the ones you've got or plant new ones, weather permitting. Get in new plants now, especially if you're in a warmer climate and have time before the cold and frost comes. If you use retaining wall blocks to accent or surround your garden, try giving a finished look with rubber mulch. It'll overwinter well and resist fading longer than other mulches.

Cut and Cover Perennials
In climates where you might have a cold snap here and there, but then it'll warm up above freezing, cover your plants. Protect your garden from freeze and frost damage to extend their season. You can get extra life out of your garden by covering your plants with 5-gallon buckets, tarps, or even painting drop cloths. It'll warm your plants like a blanket or greenhouse, and they'll survive a frost.

This works well early on, until you're fully into the colder parts of the season. Uncover the plants when it warms up again and let them enjoy that fall sun. Once the temperatures regularly dip below freezing, it's time to say goodbye to the garden for the winter.

Put the Garden to Bed
When the sun angle changes and your annuals start looking rougher, dig up the plants. Northern climates may be putting the garden to bed for the season in October or November, while warmer climates might wait until November or December. After your vegetable plants have given a final harvest, dig them up and dispose of the detritus, or dead plant debris. Feel free to let them decompose to enrich the soil unless you had one of two exceptions: if your plants dealt with disease or if you had a slug problem.

For gardens overrun with snails and slugs or if your plants struggled with disease, put the expired plants in a yard waste bag and dispose of them. You don't want to bring the disease or slugs to next year's garden. However, if you have a compost heap, feel free to add the snail-riddled plant parts there.

After you've removed the old plants, you've got a clean slate. Prepare your garden bed for the spring by rotating the soil with a rototiller or shovel. You want to send the topsoil down, bring up the deeper soil, and loosen the earth. It helps nutrients penetrate and lets the soil rest. It's also an excellent opportunity to test the soil and see what, if any, soil amendments you need. Different crops and plants use different nutrients. Test your soil to see if it's balanced or if you ought to restore certain nutrients that have been depleted.

Indoor Gardening
Gardeners with potted plants can extend their growing season by bringing delicate plants indoors to a sunny window. Indoor gardening allows both outdoor plants to live longer and house plants to bring joy into your home. Just rotate them regularly to give all the leaves equal sunlight for photosynthesis, and make sure they get enough water. Be sure to add dishes beneath the pots to catch any extra water if they don't have built-in overflow dishes.

Warm the Outdoors with an Outdoor Fireplace
Stretch out your fall evenings with a fire pit, patio heater, or outdoor fireplace to take off the chill. No matter if you're looking to heat a small patio, a cozy back porch, or a spacious deck, we've got options. All you have to do is find the one that matches your decor style.

When you're curious about how to build an outdoor fire pit or fireplace, we have the supplies you need. We carry brick pavers, mortar, a wheelbarrow, trowels, and more. Let us help you get this fall project done. If you'd love some extra heat but would rather not install a gas fire pit or fireplace, we also have patio heaters, including gas, propane, and electric models.

Ease Into Fall
This fall, prepare your yard for the change of season with us. We have the tools you need for leaf cleanup, putting the garden to bed, and replenishing nutrients in your soil so it's ready for next spring. Shop our wide variety of fall garden care online, in your local store, or in our mobile app.