Early Fall Gardening Tips + To-Do List

I find there is so much to enjoy this time of year in the garden. It's the time when the MVP's shine brightest – like agastache, nepeta and ornamental grasses – still looking gorgeous and blooming their hearts out to the pollinators and my delight. The dahlias are exquisite and are providing weekly bouquets and then some. While there's always weeding and tidying to be done, below is my list of tips and to-do's to support your garden til the

end of the season.

The eastern side of the front borders is a tangle of perennial splendor. I know I need to rearrange somethings, but am loving the lushness in the meantime.

• Do a cutback of early-season bloomers that look awful. Some of these will already have robust basal growth (lots of leaves right at the base of the plant) – think salvia or achillea. Others, like aquilegia, will produce fresh foliage in the next few weeks. At Winterhill that means:

  • Aquilegia

  • Salvia

  • Achillea

  • Lupine

  • Astrantia

  • Dicentra (this may have already gone dormant, but if not, go ahead and cut it back)

Fresh cutback aquilegia already has new growth pushing through.

• Plant! Especially trees and shrubs – which do well with fall installations. The threat of super high temps is likely past for those of us in the northeast, but there's still enough warmth and sunshine to let plants get settled in before dormancy. Plus, a lot of stuff goes on sale. :) I recently planted my most favorite tree, the Tulip Tree Poplar and can't wait to see how quickly it grows.

A newly-planted Tulip Tree Poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera) in the backyard of Winterhill.

• Add stakes to leaning plants. The common culprits are:

  • Dahlias

  • Sanquisorba

  • Joe Pye Weed

• Do your last tidy-up pruning on evergreens like ilex and boxwood. I gave all of mine a tight pruning in July, but with lots of rain since then I'm going to do have do another round on the ilex because of all the new growth.

• Buy your bulbs. Whether online (I like Brent and Becky's), or in-person, now is the time to buy if you want to get all the cool stuff. Wait til mid-October– late November to plant them. And be sure to review what you already have in case you need to buy more of the same or want to try something different. Here's what I planted last year.

A portion of the front borders in late April with tulips and narcissus overlapping.

• Overseed and fertilize your lawn. We've started using Milorganite to fertilize and have had good results. I recommend doing a soil test to see what your baseline is before selecting a fertilizer.

• Start planning for next year! After much hemming and hawing over where to put the herb+veggie garden, I've finally settled on a spot on the western side of the backyard. More to come on this.