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Fall
Is For
Planting
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Sometimes advertising slogans are actually true.
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
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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.
Hardy Hibiscus |
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Previous Articles
It's
Finally Spring - March 13
Spring Garden Calendar-March 20
No
Garden Left Behind-March 27
Planting Trees for a Cooler Earth in a Warmer
WyoBraska-April 3
Viburnums - Shrubs for Wyobraska Springs-April 10
Want A Water Conserving Lawn? You might already have
one-
April 17
Creating Long
Term
Tree-lationships April 24
Bigger, Bolder, Brighter,
Better—and Back In The Landscape May 01 & 08
Hardy Shrub
Roses
May 15
Another Look
at Native Plants
May 22
No Child
Left Inside
May 29
June
is Tree Care Month June 05
Summer Blooming Shrubs
June 12
Roses Are
Red.....
June 19
The Plants They will be Talking About Next Year at
the Garden Walk
June 26
Busy Summertime Gardens
July 03
Cutting Your Lawn Down to Size
July 10
July 17
Insect Paranoia
If It Will Grow In Wyoming...
July 24
Rain Gardens
July31
WyoBraska Native Grass & Wildflower Lawn
August 7
A Real WyoBraska Peach?
(Fruit Trees) August 14
2007 Articles
2006 Articles |
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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.
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.
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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 probably
have an attractive, year-round landscape.
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