Let’s take a look at the most critical tasks in October

As I jotted down my list of the dozen (or so) things I’d rate as most important for landscapers and gardeners to get wrapped up this month, these are the ones that bobbed to the top of the barrel like a bright, freshly picked apple.

Rated in chronological order:

• Finish all digging, dividing, replanting and sharing of spring-flowering perennials that have become crowded. This gives you the chance to rework their soil. That’s something that needs to be done every three or four years, and October is the prime time of the year. That list includes iris, daylilies, Shasta daisies, oxalis, sweet violets, St. Joseph’s lilies, trailing phlox, mallows (as they die down) and other perennials that bloom in spring and summer.

One word of warning: If your plants have thrived, don’t feel like you have to keep and replant all of the plants that you dig and divide. If you have more than you want, and if you can’t find friends who need any more, send the extras to the compost. There’s no point in replanted them into an overcrowded situation.

• Buy your spring-flowering bulbs while supplies are at their best. Buy the highest possible quality bulbs you can find. Beware of bargain bulbs at mass merchandisers. They’re almost sure to disappoint you. Buy daffodil varieties like Carlton, Ice Follies, and others that are known to be good “repeaters” (come back year after year). Avoid the big, late-flowering types like King Alfred and Mount Hood that only bloom one year, then never again. If you buy tulips, refrigerate them for at least 45 days to give them the required chilling. Plant them the last two weeks of December for best bloom.
• Buy and plant cool-season color plants. Start out with pansies and violas since they’re the most winter-hardy. Pinks (single, hardy carnation relatives) come next. Then ornamental cabbage and kale, followed by sweet alyssum and snapdragons, among others.
• Tidy up your perennial garden to remove browned leaves, spent flower stalks and seedheads. You’ll probably have one more clean-up following the first killing freeze. At that point the tops of plants like mums, mallows, bananas and others will have frozen flush with the soil and their tops can be removed.
• Prune to remove branches that are dead or damaged while you can easily distinguish them from the rest of your trees’ limbs. Those old, dried branches can snap off with the weight and wind of a winter ice storm. Don’t talk a chance. Get them out now.
• Keep mowing your lawn at the recommended height right up to first frost. Letting the grass grow taller does not provide it a “blanket” of warmth in the winter as some will lead you to believe. Truth is, tall grass quickly becomes weak grass that’s more subject to invasion by weeds.
• Use your regular mowings to remove fallen tree leaves. Mulch them back into the turfgrass. They will supply much-needed nutrients and organic matter into the soil. There will be, however, a 2- or 3-week period of peak leaf drop when there will be too many leaves for the lawn to absorb. At those times, collect the bagged clippings and put them into the compost pile or use them as garden mulch beneath your shrubs and around your perennials. Do not send them to the landfill.
• Keep a close eye out for brown patch in your St. Augustine. It’s a fungal disease that will always show up once temperatures break in late September going into October. The grass will turn yellow, then quickly brown in 18- or 24-inch circles. When you pull on infected leaves they come loose easily, separating from their runners as if they were old, wet facial tissue. The fungicide Azoxystrobin will stop further development of the disease and the lawn will bounce back.
• Apply a glyphosate spray to any lawn area you intend to convert into new flower or vegetable garden space by early spring. That particular herbicide kills grasses like bermuda and St. Augustine without going into the soil and offering any ill effects on the next crop you might plant there. But it must be applied to green and actively growing tissues, so your time is quickly running out. Once your lawn experiences its first freeze it will be too late.
• Nurseries are already beginning to reduce prices on their trees, shrubs, vines and groundcovers. Hopefully you’ve seen my notes here before – notes saying that October is the very best month of the entire year to plant new woody plants into your landscape. It gives them maximum time to establish new roots and become prepared for Summer 2021. Nurserymen also have more time to work with you now than they will in the spring, and their nursery stock is fuller and larger now than it will be when new merchandise begins to arrive in March and April. The weather is great. This is your chance to upgrade your plantings!
• Build or buy yourself a greenhouse. I had to include one task to reward you. If you’re an avid gardener, you’ll never enjoy anything more than having a place to putter around when it’s cold and windy outside. You and your tropicals can spend cozy and warm time together, preparing for the next growing season outdoors. I’ve never been through a winter without access to a greenhouse, and I hope I never will have to experience one.

You can hear Neil Sperry on KLIF 570AM on Saturday afternoons 1-3 pm and on WBAP 820AM Sunday mornings 8-10 am. Join him at www.neilsperry.com and follow him on Facebook.