My Own Fall Gardening Projects

Fall is a busy time in the garden for me. I like to use the crisp, bright days to prepare for the next spring. Fall generally means a good work out in the garden.

This year I've been a busy bee. I have completely dug up my existing flower beds along walk to the front door and around the arbor. Many of my plants out grew their spots and needed to be transplanted in order not to choke their neighbors out. I also wanted to try some new tulips, daffodils and hyacinths.

Fall is an excellent time to transplant perennials as these plants will go dormant soon. One thing I try to keep in mind is that fall can still be a dry season her in the NW, our heavy rains don't come until November. I make sure any plants I transplant are watered...or better yet, I just work in the rain....ground is softer then anyhow.

My first challenge was to expand my flower beds around the arbors, the area I needed to dig out was grass. After a couple of days of digging, I got the edger out and then dug out turf and dirt, as I shaped the new flower bed. After I had the new beds dug out and matching in shape of either side of the walk, I re-edged all the front beds.

Then I dug out the plants that would need to be transplanted. My english lavendar, magic carpet spirea, Tyler roses, dwarf daylillies, blue star creepers, liatris bulbs and dwarf gaillardia, all needed to be moved. A few of the plants I would use for a new flower bed behind a our back fence, which has a funky slope down to a business below. The rest I had already mapped out their new spots and got to digging.

I got the plants set back in,, and then began to dig new holes for the bulbs I wanted to put in. In the tulip beds, I also place snow crocus on top so that the bulb beds produce blooms in different seasons.

Now that I've edged, transplanted and placed the bulb beds in...my next challenge is keeping the damn dogs out of my flower beds. El Destructors. I had some short plastic fence material, but that didn't keep the taller dog out of the beds, so I went to Freds and bought some bamboo hoops. They were one third the cost of the same height/width metal fencing and frankly, the bamboo blends in better with the landscape.

The bamboo is pretty well doing the job keeping the dogs out, but dogs will be dogs and so will little boys who pull up Mommy's flowers.

My last steps to finish off my front yard and ready it for spring will be to cut down my dahlias and remaining perennials and prep them for winter, then put a new layer of bark mulch over the top of all the beds and line them with a pretty stone border. My hanging flower baskets won't last much longer as the nights get colder and our first frost is surely around the corner. My decorative front pots will get changed out after the mums are finished and I'll just be waiting for those snow crocuses to bloom in early February.

Here are a few pics to show the yards current state. As you can see, it's a work in progress.



Happy Fall,
Jen