Finally, … a bit of relief from the sweltering summer days perhaps. We are ready to usher in the new fall season, how about you? Cooler nights are welcome and give your ac bill a break too. The shorter days reduce the amount of heat generated during the daytime.
Maybe it hasn’t cooled much where you live just yet, but soon it will be noticed. Shorter days, cooler nights, and in many areas more frequent rainfall is a great benefit for your plants. The fall season is a welcome season not only established plants, but for new plants that you can install right now!
There is a whole underutilized season that you can all be taking advantage of. It is the fall planting season.
Fall planting works so well because the warm soils make new roots very quickly. In the spring, the soils in the more northern areas where they have frost and snow remain cold for a long time are cold to start out. The sun eventually warms them up. Now think about the soil temperatures in the fall. Just the opposite happens. The sun has been warming the soils all summer long so when fall rolls around they could not be more suitable for planting.
Warm soils encourage new roots to form very quickly. When new plants go in the ground, the faster they make new roots into your soil, the sooner your plant will re-establish in its new home. Warm soils initiate new roots whether you are planting bare root plants, or container grown plants. Even though bare root plants are going dormant, they still make new roots in the fall.
The beauty of planting new plants in the fall, your plants will get a jump start on the spring. Lilacs can produce new roots this fall, over winter, and then in spring – the plants think they have been in the ground for a full year already.
Both bare root and container grown trees and shrubs, perennials, roses, vines, evergreens and anything else that we offer in fall can get a jump start with fall planting. Get your fall wish list together.
Warm fall soils, cooler night temperatures, good moisture, and a bit slower time of the year in the garden are all outstanding reasons to utilize the fall planting season. Take advantage of everything mother nature is providing to aid in the establishment of new plants.
This time of the year is outstanding for establishing new seeded lawns and sod too. Again, warm soils, cooler air, and better moisture all will benefit from fall planting.
Always be sure to plant your bare root plants at the same depth they were grown at the nursery, and at the same depth that our container plants were grown in the pots. Please pay special attention to the planting depth as so many tend to plant those plant too deep.
Planting your plants too deep in the ground is probably the biggest mistake that people make. Trees, even when young, still have a wider trunk right as the trunk goes into the ground. If you are unsure, be sure to pull the soil away from the trunk of the tree in the pots and find the first set of roots and plant the tree so those roots are just under the soil surface.
The other super important thing to remember is that using shredded hardwood mulch around your plants is so beneficial in maintaining even moisture, controlling weeds, and increased root development. Using mulch over the tops of the root zone is where it should go. The mulch should not be piled up against the stems or trunks of the plants. Piling up excess mulch against the stems of plants and trunks of trees can be very detrimental to the health of your plants or even kill them.
The fall planting season in upon us. Take advantage of this incredible time of year where mother nature is on our side.
