GARDENING JOBS FROM YVONNE CUNNINGTON

Early fall garden jobs: In the yard

There's still plenty of bloom in the early fall garden Photo: © Y.Cunnington
Watering: One important job in the early fall garden is to continue to water your plants, especially your evergreens and trees and shrubs if it isn't raining enough. Going into the winter well hydrated will help keep your plants thriving. More on winterizing trees and shrubs.
Lawn care: Aerate your lawn and reseed any dead or thin spots. This is the best time of the year to lay sod, overseed or start a lawn from seed because temperatures are cooler and rain tends to be more plentiful than in the hot summer months. More lawn care tips.
Create a new bed: Do soil preparation for any new beds you want to have ready for spring planting.
Landscape projects: This is a good time to plan or do landscaping projects, such as walls, walkways, patios, and decks. See landscape design tips.)
Early fall garden to-do list: In the flower garden
Container plantings: Once they're past their prime, empty containers of annuals and store frost-sensitive containers in the basement or the garage.
Perennials: Don't be in a great rush to cut back all your perennials early. Seed heads and foliage that's coloring up can be beautiful, and the seeds are food for migrating birds. Just cut back plants that are diseased, those looking past their prime, or those that may become "weeds" if allowed to self-seed freely.
Late season gaps: If you have too little color in the garden now, visit your local garden center for some ideas on late-season flowers to add, and take advantage of end of season sales.
Plant or transplant perennials: Divide overgrown perennials—this is the ideal time to divide and move peonies and Siberian and bearded irises.
Deal with spent annuals: Pull or dig out summer annuals that are past their prime, and plant mums and colorful kale for fall interest.
Dig up summer bulbs if you want to keep them. After the first frost, dig up dahlias, cannas, gladioli, and similar non-hardy bulbs for winter storage; see how-to tips.
Garden planning: Make notes about garden changes or plants that you might want to move in the spring.
Think spring bulbs: Buy spring-flowering bulbs while they're in plentiful supply, but don't plant them too early.

http://www.flower-gardening-made-easy.com/early-fall-garden.html

Flowerbulbs celebrate spring From Yvonne Cunnington

Planting flowerbulbs is one of my favorite fall gardening tasks.
I like to plant them on crisp, sunny autumn days, imagining how, in just a few months, my spring bulbs - colorful crocuses, tulips and daffodils - will brighten winter-weary spirits.
If you plan carefully, the show of bulbs can last from late winter to June. The beauty of spring-flowering bulbs is their incredible variety, in size and shape, color and bloom time.
In fall when the garden is still full of foliage from summer's perennials, it's hard to recall how stark the beds can look in early spring. So try to plant abundantly so your spring show has a bigger impact.

The big three for spring: Tulips, daffodils and hyacinths
If there's one bulb that seems to personify spring, it has to be tulips.
These bulbs are the ultimate visual spring tonic, and there are scores of wonderful tulip varieties to choose from. You can even go for the drama of 'black' tulips.
Next to tulips, daffodils are amongst the best-loved spring bulbs, and unlike tulips, their flowers are deer and squirrel-proof.
Beloved for their spring fragrance, modern hyacinths come in showy colors, and are easy to force for indoor display.

Other attractive flowerbulbs
Tulips may be the most popular spring bulbs, but there are many lovely, easy-to-grow, lesser-known bulbs.
More tips for gardening with flowerbulbs
When in fall to plant bulbs? Hint: not too early
Bulb planting: How and where to plant, squirrel solutions
Designing with spring bulbs: How to get more bang from your buck
Bulb leaves: What to do about daffodil and tulip leaves after blooming
Didn't plant bulbs last fall?
You can now buy bulb plants in containers and pop them into your garden at normal bulb-blooming time. So why not try bulb plants in spring?
They include windflowers (Anemone blanda), wild hyacinth (Camassia), guinea-hen flower (Fritillaria meleagris), Persian fritillaria, (Fritillaria Persica) and Bulgarian ornamental onion (Nectaroscordum siculum).
Fortunately, most of them are unappealing to garden menaces such as deer and squirrels.
If you're looking for easy-care gardening, many of these lesser known, unusual spring bulbs also naturalize well to come back year after year, spreading if they're happy.

http://www.flower-gardening-made-easy.com/flowerbulbs.html