Maintenance

A Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That for Autumn Gardeners. Here are a few tidbits of information that might help you maintain your garden this season.

I used to refer to late August as the ‘calm before the storm’ in gardening. Once Labor Day comes it is a mad dash for us all to aerate lawns, reseed lawns, plant new beds, move old plants, put beds ‘to sleep’ and more.

Whenever my company took on a new client, the first thing we looked at was how and where water ran off their land. Grade was essential in capturing and redirecting water so rainfall didn’t destroy or rot plants, cause insect problems or hurt house foundations.

I love visiting my garden after a heavy rain. Plants and weeds seems to have grown overnight. Some perennials lay flat in garden beds with blossoms intact. Tree limbs droop and have to be pushed aside to pass.

In the mid 80’s when I worked at the Great Big Greenhouse, a co-worker was talking about organic methods to use in the garden to keep bugs away. “So what I do…” she said, “ is take a jar out to my garden and collect every non-beneficial bug, beetle and slug I can find. I bring the jar inside, add water to it and put it in my blender.