HERE WE ARE, a week into October; that means it’s time for your October to-do list.
• Plant bulbs. Yes, correct! October and November are the optimum time to plant bulbs. When planting, think the more, the merrier. Bone meal is a must. Why plant two different flower-blooming bulbs in the same place when you can plant three or four? You must water them in, then again, several times.
• Take cuttings now. Jack Frost is making his travel plans and soon will be visiting the Peninsula. Your yard is one of his sights to see. Before cold damage occurs, take away cuttings, strip them, clean them, dip them in rooting hormone (root tone), stick and mist several times a day.
Also, for any plants you wish to move indoors, clean out, strip old leaves and flowers, pinch back (they’re your cuttings), spray down hard and start bringing inside to your nice warm house at night because fall will soon destroy or harden them.
• Clean up. Because of this weather change, which predominantly means cooler and wetter, moisture conditions are ideal for the multitude of lawn and garden diseases. Molds, mildew, fungi and rust all pick fall as their favorite time of year.
Removing the prime breeding ground — which is dying flowers, worn out leaves, dried stocks and stems — eliminates most of the problem and is chemical-free. Continually this month, go out and cut away as needed.
• Equipment and tools. Here is really an important job and worth its weight in BENGAY.
You are going to be using many tools this month, so use a rainy day and perform general maintenance on them. Dull blades tear, rather then cut, plant tissue and cause disease. Sharpen the lawn mower blades, pruning shears and saw blades. File down the scissors and loppers. Clean and oil the pruners. And maybe even get a new blade.
Change the fluids and all your power equipment — filters, too.
Wire brush down and sharpen your shovels, tighten the bolts on your hand tools. This is the perfect month.
• Wait on the leaves. Do not rake leaves until they are done falling off of all the trees. Definitely get them off your garden, where they smother and rot out perennials. Remember, always clear off the leaves from the sidewalk, driveways and the quick cleanup from the massive maple leaf drop.
• Short lawn. Now is the time to take the mower off the highest setting and set it to the lowest it will go without scalping. Wait until you know it will be cool and overcast for a few days, then cut away. And please, lime it this month.
In fact, if ever you wanted to go organic, October is the month. So go to your local farm and feed store or your local plant vendor and get milorganite, blood meal, bone meal, kelp meal, cottonseed mill, green sand, potash, even Epsom salts.
Treat your lawn to a slow-release organic feed this fall and reap the rewards in the spring.
• Compost. Take all the leaves and grass you’ve collected and get a compost pile going, or add anew. October is a prime month for organic leafy refuse. Mix along with sticks, prunings of plants and the coming rain, autumn is a compost-makers paradise. Never, ever put diseased material in your compost pile.
• Sow perennial wildflower seed. October is the month of natural germination for the required cooling and dormant period needed for perennial germination.
If ever you wanted a pasture of wildflowers, just a really good pasture, or if you just wanted a lot of lupine, delphinium or foxglove around, just buy a lot of that seed and sow in October.
Water in, sow in the rain — nothing to it, but read the label, broadcast and enjoy.
• Tend the roses. Oh boy, here I get into trouble. This is only my advice; books offer others.
October is a great time to stop harvesting flowers. Go out now for the next two weeks and cut flowers away. Enjoy roses in all rooms and bring them to family, friends and in workplaces, too.
For the second half of the month and rest of the year, do not harvest or prune. Pluck off the petals before a plethora of molds come in and enjoy the rosehips as they mature to autumn shades of red, orange, bronze and tan.
Strip off old, big, worn out, diseased leaves now. Do a really thorough job the last week of October.
Also, a bone meal treatment now and a fresh layer of compost or really decomposed mulch is heaven-sent.
• Mulch the garden. Roses don’t get all the glory. After each area of the garden goes to fall, clean it up and mulch. Anything that comes back next year or any soil used for production next year wants a mulching. Thick compost or mulch keeps down on the weeds and protects against the fall- and winter-eroding rains. Deep soil conditions the ground with organic nutrients that build up and enrich our Peninsula soils.
• Divide your perennials. Transplant those misplaced plants, trim and stick strawberry runners, plant those potted lilies — October is the time! As you see that plants go dormant, drop leaves or turn color, replant it.
• Overseed the lawn. So simple! Do you want a nice lawn? Go get a really big bag of good grass seed and overseed your lawn in the rain.
• Plant new trees and bushes. Containerized, potted, B & B trees (balled and burhaped), perennials shrubs and bushes are good to plant in the next few weeks. Go out and treat your yard with several new ornamental plants and reward yourself for a summer well done.
• Germination inhibitors. If you usually use weed-seed germinators, then early October is the best time because weeds now are on a mission to overwhelm your gardens. It’s best to apply during or just before a rain!
And please … stay well all!
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Andrew May is a freelance writer and ornamental horticulturist who dreams of having Clallam and Jefferson counties nationally recognized as “Flower Peninsula USA.” Send him questions c/o Peninsula Daily News, P.O. Box 1330, Port Angeles, WA 98362, or email news@peninsuladailynews.com (subject line: Andrew May).
