Make no mistake, September is by far the best month of the year to plant a new lawn or restore an old one.  If you are thinking that you would like to put some new life into your lawn, you need to get with the program while the soils are still workable and warm enough to germinate the seed.  Which means that you are going to have to pry hubby off the couch, away from the football game, and get him out into the yard to finish this project.  

The whole concept of “fall” is something so much more than the relative hours of daylight and darkness.  Fall is a feeling, a sense of change, and there are different things that trigger that feeling in us.  

FALL IS FOR PLANTING:  It is true, fall is an excellent time to plant just about anything.  You can plant new shrubs, trees, perennials, vegetables, lawns and containers this time of year and they will get established in the fall and take off like a rocket come spring.  Here is a list of other chores to consider this month...

It’s always a dilemma this time of year.  It’s time to do our fall planting and get ready for fall & winter but the flowerpots and beds are still looking great.  In an effort to get our money’s worth out of our summer plantings, we nurse our Geraniums and Petunias along well into October.  But by waiting so long to replant, we miss the opportunity to compose new plantings that will look interesting all fall & winter long and into the spring.  

There is no way I could get through the summer without spending at least one column on the attributes of ornamental grasses.  They are in a league all of their own and the month of August is by far the best time to view them.  

Plants are a lot like pets in that they are living creatures that want to be loved and cared for.  They want to leave the pet store (substitute plant store) and be adopted by some loving family that will care for them.  No one in their right mind would bring home a new puppy and not make sure it had water and food all the time, yet home owners time and time again bring home new plants, water them once and then leave them to fend for themselves.  Too bad plants can’t talk.

August is a pivotal month in the garden.  We have a choice to continue to water, feed, prune, plant and keep things looking nice or we can just throw up our hands and let nature take its course.  Considering the lack of rainfall, many of us have probably already done just that.  I am going to assume that since you are reading this, you would like to know what to do to keep things looking nice.  Here we go…

Okay, I admit that one of the last things on my mind is planting a fall crop of veggies.  It’s all I can do to keep up with the zucchini, beans and pumpkins that the missus planted.  They have grown so much that I can hardly get to the garden to plant anything new, even if I wanted to.  But the reality is that this heat wave we have been experiencing is going to come to an end.  The nights are going to start cooling off and the days will continue to get shorter, which are all triggers for fall crops to germinate and start growing.

The Missus and I have a very convenient arrangement.  The back yard is hers and the front is mine.  So in the backyard she has created a very pleasing cottage garden look with lots of flowers and raised vegetable beds.  But in the front yard I have gone the tropical route.  In fact, I have done the tropical thing for many years using real tropicals that have to be dug and green-housed every winter.  It is truly a labor of love and a monumental endeavor.  But several years ago I decided that while I like the tropical look I was no longer going to dig up and put everything under cover for the winter.  So I started to create a tropical looking border that consisted of plants that were hardy for our northwest winters.  The results have been stunning if I do say so myself.

As gardeners, we all know there is more to gardening than just the plants.  There is a whole ecosystem that includes microbes, insects, worms, mammals (some less desirable than others) and of course birds.  All of these players interact in a healthy garden and for the most part support one another.  How we design and maintain our gardens plays a huge part in keeping all of this in balance.  I have written endlessly about building healthy soils, which encourage lively colonies of soil microbes that keep our plants healthy, which then provide the environment needed for the birds and the bees to visit our gardens.  Everything is interconnected, even if it is not obvious to us.  Here are some thoughts on attracting birds and pollinators into our gardens.