Fall Organizing for your Spring Garden

Plan ahead now to get that wonderful garden and lawn in the spring! Especially, if you're planning to put your house on the market next spring, this will give you a head start on your curb appeal.

My husband just put Scott's Turf Builder Winterguard on our lawn to beef up the grass over the winter. It comes in varieties that get rid of weeds and other pesky problems. For some reason crab grass has become very obnoxious this year in our lawn.

Another suggestion from Scott's: don't bother raking your leaves. Go over them two or three times with the mower until they are dime-sized. Next, feed your lawn. And the nitrogen and microbes will take care of the recycling. Sounds good to me!

Scott's website has helpful information, including a schedule for lawn care according to your zip code.

This is also the time of year to plant those tulips, narcissus, and other bulbs that look so inviting in the spring. A couple of years ago, we dug up our entire front garden, mapped it out, and planted perennials so we would have blooms the entire spring and summer.

One of those perennials, however, took over a lot of the garden and I'm not happy with the color, either. And not enough tulips and narcissus came up. So we're going to redo it again. I'm not so sure I would be motivated to do it again so soon, but we are having to have the drainage system redug because it is leaking into our basement. So if we are going to have to dig up the garden anyway, we may as well be intentional about it.

By now, I know what I like in the garden and what I don't want to see again. I've also learned what grows well here and what doesn't. A lot of it is trial and error, isn't it? I had the idea that once we mapped it all out, it would all grow just as we planned and I would love it. But some didn't come up and some grew too much and some I'm tired of. It's a lot of work, but it sure pays off when flowers pop up each year and it makes our house look so cute!

What do you do in the fall to prepare your lawn and garden for spring?


Related Posts: Using Your Snow Shovel Year Round - Another Gardening Tip, Winterizing your garden