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Fall is a busy time in the Northwest Arkansas landscape! From lawn care to planting new and exciting things, here's a complete list of the outdoor activities you have to look forward to this season.
Fall is the perfect time to let your lawn breathe! Over time, everything from precipitation to foot traffic packs down your lawn, making it difficult for inputs like water, seed, and fertilizer to penetrate below the surface. Use a lawn aerator to punch small holes into the surface of your landscape, which helps loosen soil and lets in all the good things.
If your landscape grass is looking a little worse for wear by the end of the summer, now is a great time to overseed your lawn. Overseeding gives your lawn a head-start on building new roots before going dormant, leading to a plush green lawn in the spring.
Both new and old grass can benefit from fall fertilizer. This nutrient boost will sustain your landscape through its dormancy and into next spring!
Treat Your Lawn for Grubs
Lawn grubs are a truly insidious pest; by the time we realize they have become a problem, they are much harder to treat. Applying a grub control product to your landscape in the fall will defend your lawn against these hidden nuisances!
Fall Garden Care
Many summer-blooming bulbs, such as dahlias and gladiolus, need a thick layer of mulch before winter to keep them safe from the winter cold. However, bulbs that are hardy in zones 8 or above should be dug up, cleaned, and stored in a cool, dark, dry environment.
Now is also the time to plant more spring-blooming bulbs like tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths in your landscape–you really can't have too many! Get creative with colors and patterns but remember to mark where you planted which varieties—it is easy to lose track of what is where!
You don't need to divide your landscape perennials every year, so here are the signs that your plant needs division: overcrowding, weak-looking plants, fewer blooms than usual, or dieback at the crown that causes a "donut" growth pattern. To divide your perennials, wait until they have gone dormant for the year, dig them up, split them with a disinfected knife, and either replant, gift, or compost the excess plant material.
If you've been eager to add some new trees, shrubs, or perennials to your landscape, now is the time! Planting now while the soil is cool will give them ample time to establish before winter.
Clean Up DebrisLeaves make excellent "browns" for your compost heap, so gather up all that fallen fodder. It's also an excellent time to cut down dead plant material found around your landscape, but be mindful not to compost anything that looks diseased.
While our winters are certainly mild relative to our northern neighbors, winter can still be challenging for our landscape plants, particularly if they're not well-adapted to cold. Throughout the fall, give these plants a weekly deep watering to help protect against desiccation and place a thick layer of mulch at the base, avoiding direct contact with trunks or stems.Top Up Garden BedsYour landscape plants will love nothing more than to wake up in the spring to a freshly replenished bed of soil! Add a thick layer of compost (about two inches) to your beds to allow nutrients to break down into a more bioavailable form for your perennials, trees, and shrubs.
Dormant landscape trees and shrubs are ready for pruning during the fall, as long as they don't bloom on old wood, which would have buds already on the branches for next year. We recommend focusing on damaged, diseased, or dead plant material, suckers, and branches that appear crowded or grow toward the ground rather than upward and outward.You can find everything you need to maintain your fall landscape in Arkansas at any of our Westwood Gardens locations. See you soon!
