For gardeners, there is little difference between September and May: they both usually provide some of the best growing conditions of the year. There are plenty of hot and humid days, but temperatures are slowly resuming to more comfortable daytime levels. This often means more lawn and garden projects!
A great time for pleasant days and balmy evenings; street fairs, Fall festivals; and crunchy apples:
– Lawns are in focus this month. Now is a good time to start a new lawn, reseed, de-thatch, or just repair your lawn.
– A great time to plant or transplant trees and shrubs: they will have up to 2 months to settle in and spread their roots before they go dormant for the Winter.
– Replace worm out annuals with pots of mums, asters, flowering kale, pansies and other Fall-blooming beauties.
– Cut back on the watering of established trees and shrubs so as to give them time to harden off for the Winter. However, continue to water evergreens until the ground freezes solid. They need to have adequate moisture in their roots through the Winter to avoid Winter burn or desiccated needles.
– Start cutting back dying or bedraggled perennials. Leave the flower heads of plants like Sedum, Coneflowers, ornamental grasses and rose hips for Winter interest and for the birds.
– Start looking for your Spring flowering bulbs: tulips, daffodils, crocus, iris and many others. Ideally, to form a good root system, bulbs should be planted 4-6 weeks before the ground freezes, but not too early that they start pushing top growth.
