Another growing season is about to end in the more northerly parts of our country, and frosts can soon be expected in New England, upstate New York, and the Great Lakes and northern Great Plains.
Therefore, it is not too early for gardeners to reminisce over the past outdoor gardening season and begin planning for the next gardening season.
First, let’s see how the weather affected our gardens this year.
In many parts of the country, particularly in the Northeast, the wettest spring on record helped produce lush growth on trees, shrubs, and lawns.
But this abundance of water was also favorable for developing diseases caused by fungi and bacteria.
As a result, many gardens now have more than the usual number and kinds of parasitic organisms.
The Garden Soil Next Year
With such a tremendous build-up of parasites, gardeners would do well to consider what might happen to their gardens next year and do something about it before the snow flies.
Measures taken now to reduce a large amount of fungus and bacterial inoculum present will go a long way toward ensuring a healthy garden next year.
This is a plea to clean up the garden this fall. It has been demonstrated repeatedly that the removal and burning of annuals and all above-ground parts of perennials that are blighted, spotted, or mildewed will reduce the disease incidence the following year.
Among the well-known diseases that can be kept in check or greatly reduced by a thorough fall and cleaning are leaf spot and crown rot of the iris leaf blotch and bud blast of peonies, hollyhock rust, and phlox mildew.
The insidious black spot disease of roses can be reduced by gathering and burning all black-spotted leaves since the causal fungus lives from season to season primarily in fallen leaves.
Some of this fungus, unfortunately, also survive in infected canes. But drastic pruning of canes early next spring will eliminate many such infections.
Organic Matter Conservationists
Of course, I will take exception to my recommendation to burn diseased plant parts.
Nevertheless, a great many kinds of parasitic fungi, bacteria, and microscopic eelworms (nematodes) live over winter in decaying parts.
Adult nematodes, which even now blight the lower leaves of chrysanthemums in many gardens, can survive in dried chrysanthemum leaves for as long as 3 years!
Unless such diseased plant parts are gathered and burned this fall, the disease-producing organisms will return to the soil more often than this.
However, don’t indulge in frequent light sprinkling, or you’ll find yourself in trouble. Roots grow where there is the most fertilizer and water.
Too frequent top dressings with fertilizer, particularly nitrogen, and too frequent light wettings result in an accumulation of feeding roots near the surface.
Drought and summer heat then do their worst.
Although light sprinklings may cool the gardener on hot summer evenings, they increase the sensitivity of the lawn to heat and drought.
A cardinal rule in lawn watering is to soak the soil well or don’t water at all.
Weeds are the curse of almost all new lawns. However, a well-fertilized lawn will gradually kill out most annual weeds in the second season.
But some weeds are tough and seem to thrive on competition, and these often must be attacked with hotelier knives and weed-killing chemicals.
Although these chemicals are indeed rough on clover, so are weeds. Therefore, drastic treatment with chemicals sometimes is necessary.
Correct Mowing of Your Lawn is Important
Most people thoughtlessly mistreat their lawns with improper mowing.
Everyone wants a thick, carpet-like lawn and believes for some strange reason that the closer the grass is cut, the thicker and finer it will become. Nothing is farther from the truth.
Close mowing has ruined many a lawn. It weakens the vitality of the grass and its resistance to heat and drought.
It also exposes every imperfection, weed, and variation in the soil surface.
The even, velvety look that is the hallmark of a good lawn depends on the grass being clipped at a reasonable height.
Two inches is ideal, which is about the maximum height obtainable with ordinary mowers.
The lawn should be mowed frequently, as often as the mower’s track can be followed.
All the height of the growing season, fine lawns should be mowed every other day, certainly no less than twice a week.
Clippings should be left where they fall. If the mowing is done often enough, the young and tender grass fragments will quickly decay and disappear.
If the clippings cumulate, forming a dense mat on the soil surface, it shows that the grass was allowed to become too mature before it was cut.
This mulch of dead grass lessens the normal aeration of the soil and inhibits new shoots from emerging in spring. So if it remains in significant amounts through the winter, rake it off in early spring.
For adequate initial preparation of the soil, Titus used a tough and durable species of grass, frequent mowing at the 2-inch height, and two fertilizations a year. you can achieve a luxuriant grass stand that will be a joy for many years.
44659 by P. P. Pirone