Garden Cleanup

Okay, so admit it, during some of those hot days of summer you didn’t water your annuals and now they look like crap or have died? I’d hate to think it was just me.

We have a garden under the eaves of our house in the front yard between the garage and the front door. This section is difficult to keep hydrated because, well, no rain ever gets to it, so even during the winter it requires watering. The actual perennial plants and shrubs we have can tolerate less water but annuals need quite a bit more. But after a while, like, say, mid-September, I feel myself deciding to just leave them. I mean, you can’t decorate for Halloween with happy pink impatiens peeking out from behind the tombstones!

So, before the weather gets so nasty you don’t want to even think about going outside to do yard work, why not take a few minutes to clean out some of the dead stuff. It shouldn’t take long if you haven’t watered in a while and you have rather loose soil, but if you have stuff directly in the ground, you may want to set aside an afternoon. When pulling out the dead plants, you will want to make sure you get the root ball too, as these can impede on future plantings growth. I know our front window box (this makes it sound small, but in reality it is an 18 inch high and wide box that spans about 9 feet) is in need of being emptied and refilled with potting soil, which can wait till spring. Hanging baskets and pots that are either filled with dead or dying plants should be emptied and stacked for next year or replanted with fall and winter flowers and plants. It is also a good idea to go ahead and deadhead any plants with spent blooms since you are outside in your garden clothes anyway.

For me, this was only part one of a two part process, and unfortunately the easier of the two tasks. Come next month when the rest of the flowers are done for the year in the backyard, I’ll have to clean out all of the in-ground stuff, the wall, the rock garden, and most of the stuff in the vegetable boxes. Ah, but at least the front yard is almost ready for Halloween decorations. Now all we have to do is go through everything from previous years and decide what to put out, what to keep, and what to toss.