The temps have finally dipped low enough to relish the tranquility of our gardens. With autumn’s arrival, we’re eager to tackle the overgrown tangles, plant our bulbs for spring’s blooms, rearrange our plantings, and apply a fresh layer of mulch. Every effort we invest now promises to yield a more captivating garden next spring, with a few notable exceptions. There are certain fall gardening duties that simply don’t merit your time and energy. Grant yourself the freedom to bypass these six autumnal garden chores that are truly a squander of time.
The allure to declutter the garden in fall is strong, yet it’s the birds and insects that prefer to keep it wild. Countless insects find refuge in hollow stems during the winter, while birds indulge in the seeds of coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, zinnias, cosmos, and the like. You can prune back dead annuals and neaten unruly perennials slightly, but try to leave some stems to stand. For overly invasive reseeding plants, simply deadhead the flowers and retain the stems rather than cutting them down to the ground.
Pruning woody plants in fall is ill-advised, so this task can be delayed until late winter or early spring. There’s no need to deadhead hydrangeas either; the withered blooms add character to the winter garden. When it comes to spring-blooming azaleas, wait until after the flowers fade to prune. However, removing dead branches from trees and shrubs can be done at any time.
Believe it or not, bagging leaves is a task that’s usually not worth the trouble, unless you derive satisfaction from the repetitive act of filling bags and carting them to the curb. There are more efficient ways to put leaves to use that don’t demand so much exertion. Shred them during lawn mowing and leave a light covering on the grass. Scatter them as mulch around your trees. Compost them or use leaves to kickstart a lasagna garden this autumn.
With many plants entering a state of dormancy during winter, fertilizing is not a beneficial endeavor at present. In fact, late-season fertilization may lead to frost damage if new growth occurs too late in the fall. We advise against fertilizing in the fall, except for cool-season lawns and newly planted bulbs.
There’s little point in collecting and composting infected tomato, squash, and cucumber plants. Your compost pile is unlikely to reach the high temperatures necessary to eradicate pests and diseases. Instead, discard these plants with yard waste, including weedy plants that are seed-bearing. Add leaves, grass clippings, and kitchen scraps to your compost heap.
While cover crops are an excellent idea for commercial farming, they are quite labor-intensive for the home gardener. Planting a living mulch of greenery in your vegetable patch in autumn, followed by incorporating the plants into the soil in early spring, is a time-consuming process. It’s crucial to remove the cover crop two to three weeks before planting anything else, or you risk a weed-ridden garden. Neglecting to do so can result in an overgrowth of weeds.
Adopting a no-till method can significantly reduce your workload. Simply lay down a thick layer of straw over your vegetable garden in the fall, and you can plant directly into the decomposing straw in the spring. It’s a cinch!
