Seasons change and bring with them new tasks. This is exciting for us home gardeners because it means we can pivot and adapt to our garden’s needs. Watering plants all summer is fun, but it’s also nice when the repetitiveness ends, and we can focus on other things. Fall invites a slew of diverse chores that will get you down and dirty in your garden.
Fall’s length varies depending on your local climate. Some growers have three months or more of cool, mild temperatures and adequate rainfall, while others have less than a month before winter frost arrives. However long your season is, it’s best to do these tasks before winter arrives. Freezing, hard grounds, and rapid winds make gardening miserable, so start working in early fall for best results.
To start, we’ll replace old plants, rejuvenate new ones, and recycle the waste. We’ll also look at lawns and garden beds to see if they can benefit from a refreshing fall boost with nutrients and amendments. Finally, we’ll prepare for next year with cover crops, compost, and mulch.
Without further ado, these are nine super easy ways to maintain a fresh-looking garden this fall season.
Clear Debris
Tender vegetables, perennials, or annual wildflowers leave decaying plant debris at the end of summer. Leaves that once photosynthesized are no longer valuable during cold weather, so species suck in their energy and drop them to the ground. They conserve all they can to survive winter dormancy.
Some plants die down to the ground leaving decaying stems, leaves, and old blossoms or seed heads. You’ll want to clear any diseased debris, especially cankerous wood, powdery mildew-infected foliage, and plants with viral infections. These diseases may overwinter on infected debris and spread to your new plants in spring.
Some decaying parts you’ll want to leave behind—they provide shelter for small bugs that hide in dead, hollow stems, and they keep seeds in the environment for hungry birds and squirrels to eat throughout the winter months. Especially if you grow native perennials, you’ll want to leave them alone until spring so they can provide freely for local wildlife while most other plants are dormant.
Protect Tender Species
Maybe you want your petunias to keep blooming, or you have a few green tomatoes on the vine you want to ripen during fall. Frost-tender species are at higher risk of dying during the fall than in summer, as they lack excess heat, and cool temperatures invite diseases, pests, and root rot.
Protect these precious specimens with row cover or greenhouse plastic. It’ll insulate your tender species at night, and let them access air and sunshine during the day. If you grow in raised or in-ground beds, an easy way to create a row cover is with metal hoops and UV-resistant greenhouse plastic. Simply stake the metal hoops into the beds, and drape the plastic over them. Clamp it down at night to keep cold air out and trap hot air in.
Other species can handle extreme cold but aren’t strong enough to resist whistling winds. Use stakes or trellises to support vining spreaders like grapes, clematis, and jasmine so they stand tall despite fall storms.
Some pests bounce back during cool, wet autumn days. Watch for aphids, whiteflies, and corn borers. Spray aphids off with strong streams of hose water, and drape micromesh netting over your crops to keep egg-laying moths and beetles off of them.
Replace Dead Plants
Summer annuals like garden balsam, petunias, and cock’s comb start declining amidst cool temperatures, excess rainfall, and less available sunshine. They may stop blooming and only grow foliage, or they’ll tucker out completely. The good news is that dozens of fall annuals thrive in cold, wet climates.
Look to your local nursery for starts that thrive in your area, or replace summer annuals with fall ones like these:
| Common Name | Scientific Name |
| Pansy | Viola tricolor var. hortensis |
| Johnny Jump Up | Viola tricolor |
| Sweet Pea | Lathyrus odoratus |
| Chrysanthemums | Chrysanthemum |
| Ornamental Kale | Brassica oleracea |
You may also transplant hardy shrubs and trees in autumn for blooms in spring. Fall is an ideal time for transplanting, as most species put down roots while they enter dormancy. Then, when spring arrives, they’ll have ample belowground growth to thrive above ground.
If you live in USDA plant hardiness zones 6 or below, you may want to wait to transplant until spring unless you’re planting an exceptionally cold hardy species.
Make Compost
With all the debris, dead plants, and fallen leaves that appear, you’ll need an efficient way to turn decaying fall garden scraps into rich, crumbly soil. Compost is the ideal solution, as it introduces natural fungi, bacteria, and worms that transform waste into soil.
Cold or hot compost piles are the simplest and easiest ways to make compost. Combine an equal amount of “greens” with “browns” in a pile three feet tall, wide, and long. Greens are fleshy materials like plant or grass clippings, kitchen scraps, and food waste. Browns include dry organic matter like fallen leaves, straw, and paper.
Maintain a moisture level of 50% in your pile—you’ll want it to feel moist but not soggy. Turn the pile with a pitchfork daily to create hot compost, and biweekly or monthly for cold compost. Hot piles create ready soil in two to four weeks, while cold piles take six months to a year to fully decay.
Apply Mulch
Raking leaves for mulch is an iconic and functional fall garden task. Once your compost is ready, you can use it as mulch in garden beds, containers, or new plantings. You can also cover it with leaf mold, wood chips, or grass clippings. They’ll decompose throughout cool winter months and add beneficial microbes and bugs to existing soils.
Mulch also protects cold-tender species by insulating their roots. The thick layer of organic matter traps heat and absorbs excess moisture. During the winter, this helps by reducing root rot, and in the summer, it keeps roots moist despite droughts and heat. Mulch absorbs the water so roots can access it as they please rather than all at once.
A final reason to apply mulch is for the spectacular aesthetics! Compost is often black, and other mulches have distinct colors. When you apply them en masse to your landscape, they add a distinct style to the garden. I love the black look of compost, although you may appreciate the light yellow of straw or the dark brown of wood chips. Choose whatever works best for you!
Plant Cover Crops
Instead of leaving beds bare, use living cover crops! They are cold hardy plant species that protect the soils they live in with their roots. Some types, like fava beans, use a partnership with nitrogen-fixing bacteria in their roots to affix extra nitrogen into the soil. They’ll give your spring plantings a boost with natural fertilizer.
Other beneficial fall cover crops for your garden include vetch, winter rye, oat, buckwheat, and clover. They thrive despite winter frost and protect against soil erosion. They also conserve nutrients and prevent winter rains from leaching them out of the soil. A few of these are leguminous, offering the same nitrogen-fixation capability as fava bean plants.
At winter’s end, either pull or hoe in the cover crops. Some, like crimson clover, reseed readily, so you’ll want to remove them before they set seed. Cutting them at their base avoids soil disturbance and protects soil life. Hoeing in or plowing cover crops injects cover crop nutrients into the soil but actively harms microbes and bugs.
A third option is to crimp and hide the cover crops. Don’t uproot the plants, but bend them at their stems with your feet so they fall. Then, put cardboard pieces on top of the site and leave in place for one to three months. The crops decay underneath the cardboard and inject nutrients and microbes as they fall apart.
Harvest Regularly
Shortening days and cooler temperatures signal to crops that it’s time to wrap up growth. They’ll rush to ripen their fruits and vegetables, and herbs will quickly flower to produce seeds. Cool, wet weather means ripening fruit may decay or mold quicker than during summer.
Protect against molds and fungi by harvesting your crops regularly. When you pick fruits, you lower the energy your plants expend. Pick them often so the plants have extra resources to ripen their remaining fruits.
Speed up the ripening process further with hard pruning. Species like tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants continue growing until frost kills them. This means they’ll bloom flowers, form new fruits, and sprout foliage at the expense of ripening their current crop. When you hard prune, you remove their leaves, flowers, and small fruits to force energy into ripening ones. Simply cut off stems that don’t have bulging fruit already, and trim off any flowers, small fruits, and leaves.
Prune Woody Shrubs and Trees
Fall is an ideal time to prune woody garden species that enter winter dormancy. Deciduous trees lack leaves, making it much easier to see which branches need good pruning. Other species die back low to the ground, meaning you’ll want to clean out all the dead stems.
Plants like roses, fruit trees, and large specimens benefit from late winter or early spring pruning. They seal their wounds better with warmer temperatures. Avoid pruning cold tender species or any plant that blooms on old wood. If you prune them in winter, you’ll cut off next year’s blooms.
Trees and shrubs to prune in fall include berry shrubs with canes, Mediterranean woody species, and small branches on deciduous trees. Cut off canes that fruited this year for berry shrubs and trim Mediterranean species back a bit, leaving green growth on each stem. Remove crisscrossing, diseased, or damaged branches from deciduous trees.
Reestablish Your Lawn
Renew your lawn this season so it bursts with green grass blades next spring. Cool, moist soils are perfect for existing grass clumps to spread and for grass seeds to sprout anew. Reestablish your lawn by mowing it three inches or shorter, lining its edges with a weed wacker or edging tool, sowing new seeds, and aerating.
Lawn aeration creates holes in the soil, so grassroots have better access to air and moisture. Use a lawn aeration tool, or try a broad fork or pitchfork. Stab the soil repeatedly in rows, creating holes all over the lawn. Then, sow fresh grass seeds on bare lawn patches.
Finally, if you deal with a lot of moss in your lawn, the soil may be too acidic for optimal grass growth. Apply organic garden lime according to the package’s directions to make the soil more alkaline by spring. Alkaline soil discourages moss growth and aids lawn grasses in establishing themselves.
Key Takeaways
- Clear garden debris, but leave native plant stems and seed heads for wildlife to enjoy.
- Fall blooming annuals like pansies add color where summer annuals struggle to. Replace summer plants with fall ones in late summer or early autumn.
- Compost rejuvenates soils so you don’t have to! Apply it annually during autumn and spring.
- Prune during fall, unless it’s an old wood-blooming shrub, a fruit tree, or a cold-tender tree.
- Fall is an ideal time to rejuvenate your lawn—aerate it, apply lime if necessary, and mow and edge it before winter arrives.
