|
Fall is for
Planting
 |
|
The county fair is over. The worst of the summer
heat seems to be at least slightly fading. College
students are excitedly packing their bags to head
back to a place with a social life. Back to school
sales are in full swing. Why it must be time to
plant.
Back in the 1980’s, the American Association of
Nurserymen hired an advertising firm to develop a
national advertising campaign that members could use
to promote fall plant sales. One of the slogans
that the firm developed was “Fall Is For Planting”.
I remember how bold that statement seemed when the
advertising campaign materials were first being
introduced to member nurseries. At that time fall
was thought to be for raking leaves, and I remember
that even many garden center owners were worried
that plants sold and planted in the fall might not
survive the winter. Traditionally most garden
centers in the northern half of the United States
sold little other than tulip bulbs and a few
blooming mums in the fall prior to 1980.
How times have changed. What seemed like a bold and
almost heretical advertising slogan in 1985 is now
increasingly recognized as a valid scientific
statement. FALL IS FOR PLANTING.
 |
|
With more than ten years of experience with fall
planting it is now clear to me that fall is an ideal
time to plant almost everything. I’m often asked,
“How late into the fall can you plant?” and my
answer is, “Until the ground freezes.” That usually
occurs in very late November or early December. The
idea that winter is a hard season on newly planted
landscape plants has turned out to be a myth.
Winter is actually a low stress time for a healthy
plant, and summer is the high stress time. Planting
in the fall allows a plant the opportunity to get
established at its new site before it has to go
through the hard work of growing leaves, storing
energy, finding soil elements and water, and all of
the other tasks required of a growing plant.
For Wyobraska homeowners, fall planting offers
another important advantage. Fall is when the
plants that grow well in landscapes in Wyobraska are
also at their best. Many of our best landscape
plants don’t look so hot in the spring and even
early summer. So a homeowner that doesn’t know a
lot about plants, that goes into a garden center in
the spring to buy plants for a landscape project is
likely to overlook some of the best choices for
Wyobraska landscapes. By the same token, a lot of
the plants that look really good in the springtime
in your favorite garden center don’t stay that way
very long when you plant them in your landscape.
Fall planting helps the do-it-yourself landscaper do
a better job of plant selection without doing a lot
of research.
|
|
Previous Articles
Fractions March 15
Yardner March 8
Urban
Legends of Trees March 22
Que
Serra, Serra March 29
Grocery Store or Garbage Dumpster Plants April 5
Planning Your Landscape Project April 12
Planting
Cool Trees April 19
Keeping
Trees Alive April 26
Thrillers, Chillers, Spillers May 03
Will
You Still Love Them May 10
Ornamental Grasses May 17
In
Memory of Cedar Trees May 24
Gardening is not Childs Play
Versatile
Viburnums June 6
Yardner Plants
June 13
2007
Garden Walk and
Blue Spruce Decline
The Birds
& Bees of Butterfly Gardening June 28
Summer
Landscaping July 5
Cutting Your Lawn Down to Size July 12
Some Like it
Hot!! July 19
When a Tree
Falls on 5th Ave
July 26
Green
Landscaping August 2
American Idol-Landscape Aug 9
2006 Articles |
|
As with many scientific
discoveries, once the statement is made, the
evidence begins to show up everywhere. Believing is
seeing, as they say. Most plants drop their seeds
in the fall—plant their seeds, if you will. Some
seeds lie in the soil all winter and wait until
spring to germinate, but the seeds of many
perennials actually germinate in the fall and
produce a small plant which already has a head start
on the next growing season. This is particularly
true of the spring and early summer blooming
perennial flowers.
Most bulb type flowers and plants with bulbous roots
like iris, daylilies, Asiatic lilies, and peonies
prefer to be moved in the late summer and early
fall. The annual growth cycle of these plants is
mostly completed by late summer meaning that the
plants have completed storing energy in their large
fleshy roots, making late summer and early fall an
ideal time to dig up the roots and move them to a
new location—or to first plant them in your garden.
And changes in the way trees and shrubs are grown
and sold have also made it possible to buy high
quality nursery stock for fall planting rather than
just the leftovers from the spring planting season.
More and more nursery stock is now being grown in
containers, meaning that it can be shipped, stored,
and planted without any extra stress to the plant.
As a result, many garden centers now restock their
tree and shrub inventories throughout the growing
season, and often bring in fresh supply just for
fall sales.
|
|
Tips for Fall Planting Projects
1.
Make your landscape bed wide enough to fit the
mature size of your plants—especially shrubs and
perennials.
2.
Remember to amend the soil with compost and sulfur.
3.
Remember to apply a 3-4 inch layer of shredded wood
mulch after planting
4. If
at all possible, use some of the new drip irrigation
products to help make your project lo-maintenance
and water-saving.
5.
Space your plants for their mature size—not their
current size. For perennials and ornamental
grasses, space them about as far apart as they get
tall.
6.
Select plants that look good in the fall and winter,
and you’ll create an attractive, year-round
landscape.
|