Fall is a good time to enhance your garden’s potential and protect the habitat of native species.
- Assess your garden’s summer performance. Is more variety of color needed? Did some plants grow better than others? Use this information to plan for next spring.
- Rake and spread leaves fallen onto the lawn into your garden as winter mulch and a source of nutrients.
- Consider additions to the garden like a small stone pile or a hardwood log (with bark intact) to provide habitat for beneficial insects to overwinter.
- Plant Spring flowering natives in fall for early spring color.
- Divide and transplant plants to expand garden for the next growing season.
- Don’t cut dead stems. Hollow stems of herbaceous plants can serve as nesting sites for native bees that are important pollinators.
- Leave leaf litter intact. Leaves that have fallen into garden can be left in place to provide leaf litter which serves as over wintering habitat for life stages of numerous insects such as bumble bees, fireflies and luna moths.