checklist for fall
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Early fall -
One of my colleagues recently asked what to plant in the fall and when to plant bulbs. I excitedly launched into my spiel about my husband’s and my fall checklist. I realized that not everyone, and certainly not new suburban transplants (pun, ha!), have yet to develop a fall checklist. So here’s mine.
I’m in New England, and like nearly all New Englanders, I love fall. Though I am always sad to say goodbye to the beautiful long, hot days of summer, the suddenly crisp cool air is something I get excited about. Not only is it an opportunity to decorate a bit, which I love, it’s an opportunity to get the house, indoors and outdoors, ready for winter.
This is a flowerbed we designed to honor my husband’s late mother. It’s called Ginny’s Bed. It has forsythia, hydrangeas, hibiscus, and weigela.
Some things I love to do in the fall:
1. Plant - Fall is for planting, moving, and splitting. While the ground temps are still above 65 degrees (you can check using an old meat thermometer), you can plant just above anything (not bulbs, we’ll get to that). Bonus: many garden nurseries have their plants discounted because it’s the end of the season. Even better is that if you plant now, your plants will have time to establish and give you a better show next season than if you planted them in the spring.
We recently created another bed to honor my recently deceased mother-in-law (lovingly called Ginny’s Bed). We were able to purchase 50%-off two vanilla strawberry hydrangeas, a sonic bloom weigela, and an opening day viburnum. We’d previously planted two forsythia and moved another we planted, as well as two hibiscus bushes we’d moved from other parts of the yard, where they weren’t doing as well. I’m so excited to see this bed develop next spring. The forsythia will bloom yellow in the early spring, then fade to green and be an excellent backdrop for the hibiscus in front of them which bloom all summer. The opening day will give us baseball size white blooms in mid-spring, then the weigela and hydrangeas will give us pink and white beauty all summer into fall. When planting in the fall, again remember the ground temperature, but don’t forget to water. I know it sounds obvious, but new plantings, even in the fall, need water for their root systems to thrive before winter comes. Can’t wait to show you how good it looks in the spring!
Splitting our irises in the fall
Move and split - For the same reason I plant in fall, I move and split in the fall. It gives all my darlings a chance to establish and recover. I generally move plants that don’t seem to be doing well in the spot I originally chose. It happens. We have some crazy undergrowth close to our property line that literally chokes out the plants we’ve tried to put near them. Once we moved them, they thrived. You can move any and all of your flowers and shrubs.
You can split plants in the fall or spring. It’s more unwieldy to split in the fall because everything still has leaves you have to work around. Again, the benefit is giving your plants a bit of time to establish before the winter to potentially get a show next season. We generally split and move our irises, lilies, catmint, and hostas. Irises and lilies are those types of plants that will take over entire beds if you let them, so splitting them every other year is a good idea. You can replant them elsewhere in your yard. Or if you’re already overrun, you can offer them to a neighbor or list them on your local gardening group. Irises and lilies are crazy resilient, I’ve literally thrown them into a hole and not bothered with them again and they always come back. Hostas and catmint, I usually take a bit more care digging them up, splitting, and replanting them. I usually do a combination of added shock treatment, like this one, and add compost from our compost pile to give plants much needed nutrients.
Mums, kale, and pumpkins for fall
2. Decorate - I love decorating in the yard in the fall. First for fall, and then for Halloween (but that’s another blog post). I don’t have a porch, so I can’t put out wreaths. I love flags in other folks' yards, it’s just not my “thang”. I love mums and pumpkins though. As long as you wait until temps are consistently in the 70s during the day, you can put mums, kale, and uncarved pumpkins out in pots and they will last all season. In New England, you can even plant hardy mums and be richly rewarded with late season color in your flower beds. Another great option is purple fountain grass. My neighbor gave me one this year and I have loved the look all summer, but something about it is also perfect for fall. It’s also a great alternative to messy cornstalks.
Patio heater with beautiful fall leaves in the background
3. Add warmth - now is a great time to uncover and dust off the patio heater or fire pit. Make sure you fill up the propane tank and spare for the heater.. We have both a heater add a fire pit and they offer different kinds of heat. For the really cool nights, nothing beats the patio heater. We bought our patio heater at Home Depot though Lowe’s has one that is less expensive here. The fire pit isn’t a great source of warmth, but you can make wonderful smores and even better memories, and it sure does look lovely while hanging out in the backyard.
4. Wash - In New England, we’re about to be stuck inside with closed windows for months. So we like to do a fall cleaning, which includes washing the screens and windows, since we’’l be staring out of them for months, and washing the curtains, which are covered in dust from having the windows open all spring and some cool summer days.
5. Check generator - We have a portable gas generator for potential power outages. We give it a check by running it, checking oil and gas levels and generally just ensuring it’s in working condition.
6. Organize - I love to reorganize. Maybe love is too strong a word. I love the opportunity to reset our garage. The fall is perfect because it’s cool enough to dig out the messes we created over the summer without being in a 90 degree garage. We move fall, Halloween, and Christmas decorations to the front, and move planting and garden tools to the back. Before moving those tools, make sure you give them a good wash, dry and oil to keep them in tip top condition for next year.
7. Don’t do this- Don’t trim your rose bushes and stop fertilizing everything. You’ll unintentionally promote new growth which will be damaged by any upcoming frost. It could actually kill your plant. The only thing I feed are the bulbs when I put them in, more about that below.
Late fall -
A trench filled with daffodil bulbs - the only way I like to plant bulbs.
1. Plant bulbs - I love spring bulbs because after a long New England winter, seeing those beautiful babies pop up is glorious. Ground temperatures need to be below 55 degrees. As noted in #1 above, you can use an old meat thermometer to check the ground temp. I’ve tried both individual bulb planting and trench digging. I’m a trench fan. You literally dig a big trench, shake a bag or box of bulbs over the trench, use your hands to generally spread them around and boom, done. So easy. I add bulb tone to the ground before I put the bulbs in and dust a layer of dirt over that so the bulbs aren’t directly touching the bulb tone until they start growing in the spring. I then usually spray a critter repellent onto the bulbs so they don’t get eaten. If I can’t find the spray, I use the granules and put some with the bulbs, as well as mixing some on the top layer of dirt. I find the fall planting of bulbs so worth the effort in the spring.
Life-sized Connect4 that usually sits on the patio, but the cover with tarp for winter.
2. Put away hoses and blow out spigots - this is where you need to keep an eye on evening temperatures. If you see below 30 in the forecast, plan on this step. As much as you can, drain hoses and dry off the metal ends. Put them away in the garage or shed for the winter.
For the spigots, find the water shut off valves for each spigot and turn it off. Then go back out to the hose knob and open it all the way. This is so you ensure the water is really shut off and drain the water from the system, thus ensuring no frozen pipes.
3. Put away and/or cover the grill, furniture, etc. - We have a small shed and a small garage.. We can’t possibly fit everything in there. So what goes in the shed is what would suffer the most damage from snow and ice. This includes the metal chairs, patio umbrellas and wood patio table. The rest is covered with outdoor tarps, such as the grill, the patio heater, and the massive Connect 4 Game. Yes we have a massive Connect 4 (see pic of our son playing it inside and below you can see it in the yard in the patio light picture).. My husband saw it at a hotel we were staying at in Orlando. He wanted it for him and my son to play. I am the family budget gatekeeper and said “no way” to nearly $200 for a giant outside game. So he literally saved aluminum cans and cashed them in to get it. We also cover the sandbox, though we’re still trying to figure out the best way to keep water from pooling in it. For the patio heater, we used this patio heater cover for the last two years before the zipper failed. The zipper was just damaged from all the freeze-thaw and freezing temperatures, but better the cover than the heater, which is still perfectly fine.
Poor Mr. Bun’s ear is broken because we failed to take him inside one winter.
4. Put away outdoor decor - We learned the hard way that even those concrete decorations, like the bunnies and gnomes, don’t like being left out and are susceptible to freeze thaw cracking. Grab that stuff up and put it in the garage or shed.
5. Feed the lawn - If you have a lawn, this is the perfect time to feed it. We use Scotts Step 4 in the fall to feed and protect the lawn for spring.
6. Take down and store outdoor lights - love, love, love our outdoor patio lights. It’s extended the time we can spend outside. Don’t get me wrong, I love when the bats zip by and snag the mosquitoes, but there’s a point at which it was so dark out there I could see my husband’s handsome face. This is the first year we’ve had the lights up and hope to get to mid-October before we have to take them down. I hope with the lights and patio heater, we can still spend many weeks enjoying the outdoors. We plan on leaving the poles where they are, but to protect the lights, we will take each individual bulb and pack it away, do the same with the cord, and wait for spring.
I love out patio lights, but in New England's harsh winter, we don’t leave them out.
Rain barrel in use in our front garden
7. Drain the rain barrel - Some communities participate in a great program to offer discounted rain barrels through the Great American Rain Barrel Company. We currently have one barrel with plans to add two more next season. It’s been a real help in periods of drought, like 2022, and periods of little rain in New England in general which is usually July and August. Plus it’s one more thing we can do for the environment by not relying on the town’s strained water reserves, especially in times of drought. However, these must be drained and put away before the first frost because the barrel or spigot could crack if it has water in it or the barrel is subject to extreme temperatures or freeze/thaw cycles.
