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ENLARGE
Steve Renquist
As the rainy season begins the annual recharge of our parched soils, it’s a good time to remember a few important gardening steps to take before winter is upon us.
The most important gardening practice for winter, in my opinion, is to get a good cover of organic mulch over any bare soil in your landscape. This mulch can be compost or shredded leaves from your own yard, recycled mulch material from the county landfill, or shredded bark from a local business. Why would we want to cover any bare soil? The two main reasons are preventing compaction and erosion.
Think about what happens all winter — a steady rain, week after week. When raindrops hit the soil over and over again, they cause serious compaction. When the soil dries out in June, the surface of the soil becomes a piece of cement.
When placing mulch in your landscape, make sure you do not pile the material up against tree trunks or the stems of shrubs. Leave a few inches of space around the trunks so field mice, voles and other rodents don’t have shelter where they can feed on the bark of your plants.
Another timely and important step to take now is to trim the deteriorating tops of herbaceous perennial and annual plants, especially if they had diseases during the growing season. Take your garden trimmings to the compost heap and you can eventually recycle material back to your own garden soil. If you have a shredder or can run over your trimmings with a mulching mower first, your composting process will go a lot faster.
There is more and more evidence that if you can get your compost pile to heat up to 140 degrees, putting diseased plant material in the pile will not be a problem, nor will you need to worry about weed seeds surviving. Remember, not every load of yard waste you can recycle at home has to be hauled to the landfill or handled by the county, which has a pretty tight budget these days.
Your lawn is the one area of the landscape that does not need or want a leaf cover to protect it from the winter rain. Either mulch, mow your leaves back into the lawn if you have a light cover, or rake them off and shred them for mulch material in your garden beds. Early fall is a good time to give your lawn an application of slow-release fertilizer to help it recover from a long hot summer, especially if you let your lawn dry out. A fall application of lime to your lawn every few years will also be beneficial if the pH of your soil is below 6, which is typical of our area.
Our lawns are typically cool-season grasses (perennial rye, bentgrass, red fescue, creeping fescue) that like to slow down or go dormant during the hot summer and reinvigorate in the fall and spring.
Remember, if you have any gardening questions, call our Extension office and ask for the Master Gardeners.
The most important gardening practice for winter, in my opinion, is to get a good cover of organic mulch over any bare soil in your landscape. This mulch can be compost or shredded leaves from your own yard, recycled mulch material from the county landfill, or shredded bark from a local business. Why would we want to cover any bare soil? The two main reasons are preventing compaction and erosion.
Think about what happens all winter — a steady rain, week after week. When raindrops hit the soil over and over again, they cause serious compaction. When the soil dries out in June, the surface of the soil becomes a piece of cement.
When placing mulch in your landscape, make sure you do not pile the material up against tree trunks or the stems of shrubs. Leave a few inches of space around the trunks so field mice, voles and other rodents don’t have shelter where they can feed on the bark of your plants.
Another timely and important step to take now is to trim the deteriorating tops of herbaceous perennial and annual plants, especially if they had diseases during the growing season. Take your garden trimmings to the compost heap and you can eventually recycle material back to your own garden soil. If you have a shredder or can run over your trimmings with a mulching mower first, your composting process will go a lot faster.
There is more and more evidence that if you can get your compost pile to heat up to 140 degrees, putting diseased plant material in the pile will not be a problem, nor will you need to worry about weed seeds surviving. Remember, not every load of yard waste you can recycle at home has to be hauled to the landfill or handled by the county, which has a pretty tight budget these days.
Your lawn is the one area of the landscape that does not need or want a leaf cover to protect it from the winter rain. Either mulch, mow your leaves back into the lawn if you have a light cover, or rake them off and shred them for mulch material in your garden beds. Early fall is a good time to give your lawn an application of slow-release fertilizer to help it recover from a long hot summer, especially if you let your lawn dry out. A fall application of lime to your lawn every few years will also be beneficial if the pH of your soil is below 6, which is typical of our area.
Our lawns are typically cool-season grasses (perennial rye, bentgrass, red fescue, creeping fescue) that like to slow down or go dormant during the hot summer and reinvigorate in the fall and spring.
Remember, if you have any gardening questions, call our Extension office and ask for the Master Gardeners.
Steve Renquist is the Horticulture Extension Agent for OSU Extension Service of Douglas County. Steve can be reached by e-mail at steve.renquist@oregonstate.edu. or by phone at 541-672-4461.
