After the hot summer season when the gardens and vegetable patches sometimes suffered from drought, comes autumn, a transitional season before the lasting arrival of cold weather and short days. Between cleaning, mowing, pruning and measures to take in anticipation of winter, the fall season is not easy for green hands! Discover the 10 essential gardening jobs to do before the winter break.
10 tips for maintaining your garden in autumn
- Pick up dead leaves
- Trim your hedges
- Give your shrubs a good cleaning
- Reap what you sow
- Move plants and trees, if necessary
- Buy trees
- Anticipate cold damage
- Give your lawn a final makeover
- Think of birds in the sky and insects
- Plant your bulbs
Autumn is a season rich in work for gardening lovers, since it concerns the maintenance of trees, lawns and vegetable gardens alike. To allow your exterior to spend the winter in the best conditions, find out everything you need to know about the essential maintenance to be carried out during this period.
1. Pick up dead leaves
If their gradations of colors superbly mixing red, yellow and orange have not finished marveling us every year, it is essential not to let them cover your garden. The high fall humidity can quickly cause these leaves to rot and thus promote the development of certain diseases . In order to avoid this, it is therefore necessary to collect them regularly. Do not hesitate to recycle them by enriching your compost or to use them as mulch at the foot of your beds.
2. Trim your hedges
In order to help them spend the winter comfortably, it is time to trim your hedges to prevent them from retaining the humidity , which is very present in autumn, and from rotting. Make a precise cut , and above all clean, to avoid making unsightly holes in it, which you will then have to support throughout the winter season, because they will only grow back from spring. Finally, as the season progresses, also remember to clear them of any leaves from trees that fall on them and risk suffocating them.
3. Give your shrubs a good cleaning
Are your shrubs starting to turn yellow ? Their stems do not resist the law of gravity and wither? These unmistakable signs indicate that it is time to cut them at the risk of seeing them wither. To do this, eliminate the leaves as well as the peripheral branches that need to be removed, in order to allow your shrubs to develop well and come back to life once spring returns. For larger trees, hire a pruner .
4. Reap what you sow
Autumn is also a good reason to take care of your vegetable garden:
Harvest seasonal vegetables , such as squash, pumpkin and pumpkin (Halloween or not!),
eliminate weeds ,
Sow a green manure such as clover, alfalfa, or even mustard seeds, in order to nourish and preserve your land,
5. Move plants and trees, if necessary
This is the ideal time to move your plants and trees , because the earth is particularly humid, because of the rains, while still being warm, because summer is not far away. Your plants are therefore in very favorable conditions to adapt to a new environment, in the event of a move.
6. Buy trees
“A la Sainte Catherine, all wood takes root!”, as this famous diction confirms, it’s time to offer yourself the shrubs or fruit trees of your dreams and plant them in your garden, respecting, of course, a some distance between them to allow them to grow well.
7. Anticipate cold damage
Don’t drop your potted plants in winter ! If you can, place the most fragile ones in the shelter of your veranda or place them in front of the facade of your house facing south . The most fragile plants must be covered by a wintering veil and protected at their base. Finally, also mulch your vegetable garden.
8. Give your lawn a final makeover
Before saying goodbye to your lawn for a few months, pamper it! For this, rake the dead leaves , which prevent it from seeing the light of day properly and which are too rich in humidity. At the beginning of November, give it a last mowing , but above all not too short. The grass must reach, at least, 5 centimeters. Finally, you can also use specific fertilizer for autumn , which has a high potassium content and is low in nitrogen, in order to make it more resistant to frost.
9. Think of birds in the sky and insects
The first frosts also herald the start of the garden bird feeding season . To do this, offer them fat balls as well as specific seeds placed in different places in your garden. You can hang the balls from the branches of trees and place the seeds in feeders, always high up, to protect the birds from predators, such as cats. Also think about installing an insect hotel as well as a small hut for the hedgehogs.
