October is an important month for many things in our gardens. Here are the top 10 projects to tackle:
1. It’s the last chance to plant garlic for harvest next July. Raised beds, sandy soil and a sunny location are key. Russian garlic is quite successful in our area. Plant at a depth 3 to 4 times the width of the clove and about 10-12cm (4-5″) apart.
3. While the ground is soft, aerate your lawn and apply ¼” of washed sand (rake it in). To tone up your lawn, keep it green and help it bounce back quickly in the spring, apply a controlled-release nitrogen fertilizer like 32-0-10. Now is also the time to apply Dolopril or organic eggshell lime to our lawns to prevent the soil from becoming too acidic over the winter months. Should you be feeding, apply the fertilizer now and then wait three weeks to apply the lime. If you’re not feeding, liming can be done now. Do not apply both at the same time.
5. It’s time to tidy up your roses for winter by simply pruning lightly (about 2 to 3 feet) and by cleaning out any dead or weak wood. Climbers should be retrained on arbours and trellises and cut back to about 4 to 6 feet. Leave only 4 to 5 canes and cut out the rest. In early November, apply about 12 to 15” of protective mulch or even soil over the bud unions. Tree roses need to be wrapped with a cylinder of wire mesh from top to bottom and sawdust or bark placed on the inside to protect both the top and bottom graft. Cutting back rose stems too hard will invite frost into the tender stems, which we don’t want. So just tidy things up and protect the grafts for now!
7. As soon as the foliage dies down on your dahlias, lift and protect the tubers. Canna roots should soon come in for winter, too. Cut tubers back to about 4″ from the soil level, carefully lift them out with forks, clean and dry them, then store in a cool 4.5°C (40°F), dry place over the winter.
9. As late summer and fall herbaceous perennials finish and look messy, prune them to the ground and apply compost or manures to build up the soil for next year. Plant winter pansies, violas and hardy evergreen perennials and grasses in bare areas for a great look all winter, and plant bulbs in among them for a real treat next spring.
Remember the pollinators! Food sources are getting a little lean for our pollinating friends. Great sources of pollen/nectar at this time of year are: Michaelmas daisies (asters), aster novi-belgii, rudbeckia nitida’ Herbstsonne’, late-blooming heliopsis, winter-flowering heathers, Mahonia media’ Charity’ and ‘Winter Sun,’ and Mahonia aquifolium.