A Prairie Garden Journal    by Dick Meyer

A Few Fall

Landscape Tips

Late summer is a relatively slow time, chore wise, in a Wyobraska landscape.  No leaves to rake yet, the grass isn’t growing as fast anymore, so the mowing can be a little less frequent or less work, and the shorter day length and cooler temperatures bring a reprieve from the intense lawn watering of the now past  hottest part of summer.   It’s a good time to enjoy a few football games while the prospect of a national championship or super bowl victory for your favorite team is still a possibility

But most evergreen trees actually hang on to their leaves (needles) for 3 or more years.  So evergreen trees grow a new set of needles each spring, and drop one set of needles each fall.  But the set of needles that evergreens drop each fall are the ones that are three or four years old.  They are the set of needles that are on the section of each branch that is closest to the trunk of the tree.  

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
Fall is for Planting Aug 16
Is your Landscape Neat or Messy? Aug 23
The Seeds of a good Landscape Aug 29
Big Red Fall Color Sep 6
 

2006 Articles

Recent years’ fall weather in Wyobraska has been characterized by warmer than normal September temperatures which prolong the growing season.   But the pleasant September warmth brings with it the greater risk of a sudden Canadian cold front catching some landscape plants unprepared for a hard freeze.  The risk of this happening increases dramatically if September passes without a light frost.  One way to minimize this risk is to shut off the lawn irrigation system for a couple of weeks and let a little late summer drought stress slow down those trees and shrubs that would otherwise grow actively late into fall.   A little drought stress this late in the growing season will do no harm to either lawns or landscapes, and will actually help most landscape trees by minimizing, if not eliminating the risks of injury to still actively growing plant tissues from a sudden hard freeze. 

The other benefit to a little induced drought stress to your landscape is improved fall foliage color on trees and shrubs.  Regular observers of fall foliage in places like New England and the Colorado Rockies will tell you that the most vibrant fall foliage color occurs in those years will scant late summer and early fall rain.  Autumns with frequent and/or heavy rains, on the other hand, generally produce poor fall foliage color to go along with the inhospitable viewing conditions.   So shut off the lawn irrigation system for a couple of weeks, give the lawn mower a week off, and enjoy the clear sun-filled days and cool evenings of the last two weeks of September. 

By the way, as soon as we have any freezing temperatures at all, or as soon as you see a few hints of fall color in the leaves of your trees, be sure to turn the sprinkler system back on for a few more waterings in October.  It’s good for landscape soils to dry out in the fall, but it’s equally good for them to be moist going into winter. 

Every year about this time many homeowners wonder if their pine trees are dying.  The cause for their concern is the sudden appearance of brown needles in their pine trees.  What these concerned homeowners are observing is actually just a normal (and annual) phenomenon.  Evergreen trees, like shade trees, drop leaves each fall.  Shade trees grow a completely new set of leaves each spring, and drop them all each fall. 

Many homeowners are a little too anxious to begin cleaning up their landscape in the fall.  I get many questions like “When should I cut back my shrub roses?”, and “When should I cut back my perennials and ornamental grasses?”  These questions reflect the traditional thinking that landscapes go into winter all neat, clean, and orderly.   I recommend not overdoing the fall clean-up.  It’s a good idea to get most of the leaves off your lawn before winter.  But bagging lawn mowers will do most of that work.  And most perennials and ornamental grasses are best left to spring.  Their slowly declining skeletons in the fall and winter landscape can serve as a kind of annual sundial, measuring the slow but steady progress of the seasons, while still adding significant visual interest to the landscape during Wyobraska’s longest landscape season. 

Many experienced gardeners recommend cutting back Russian sage and purple coneflower in the fall because of their tendency to volunteer if left to go to seed.  My own experience is that this is a good idea in most cases, and certainly will not hurt the plants to do so.   But for any other perennials, my suggestion is to leave it until spring unless its appearance bothers you so much that you can’t stand it. 

As for shrub roses, remember they are hardy roses and do not need to me mulched.   The only pruning they need is the pruning required for any shrub—prune off broken or injured branches in the spring, prune off any branches that are growing where you don’t want them to grow, and then touch it up to make it look uniform. 

Flying Pumpkins

In many regions of the country, nothing says fall quite like flying pumpkins.  The flying pumpkins are being shot out of catapults and other especially designed pumpkin artillery in contests designed to see whose pumpkin shooters can fly their ten pound pumpkins higher and farther than anyone else’s.  If you don’t think that sounds like fun, you’ve got no little boy left in you.   Besides, I never did like pumpkin pie. 

If any “little boys” out there with a little scrap metal and a welder or a few spare logs and some rope want to try their hand at building and testing a pumpkin shooter, call Megan at The Village Garden Center for details.