Year-Round Advice to Keep Your Garden Beautiful

November

November is the time to plant bulbs such as daffodils, narcissus (paper-whites), hyacinths, and tulips. You can now divide your iris, cannas, and amaryllis already in your yard. Choose a sunny and well-drained area when planting or dividing bulbs. Prepare the soil with compost and/or peat moss, then add a little bone meal under each bulb as you plant it. This will ensure bigger and better blooms. 

Let’s start preparing our potted plants and hanging baskets to be brought in for the winter. Inspect the soil and plants for insects. These you will want to spray while the plants are still outside. Do any shaping and trimming as needed. Check if the plants need to be repotted at this time. Use a good, quality potting soil & you will be glad you did. 

There is still plenty of time to plant your pansies, snapdragons, stock, flowering kale, cyclamen, and dianthus. These will give you lots of color through May. In your vegetable garden onions sets, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, and cauliflower are all good fall crops. 



In the fall, fertilizing your lawn is important to help it recover from the summer and to give a good start next spring. Cool-season grasses can be planted now (rye and fescue). Overseeding existing lawns with rye will keep the winter weeds out and insulate the yard in a cold winter. Applying a pre-emergent herbicide now can save you a lot of weeding next spring. There are several fall fertilizers that have the pre-emergent herbicides mixed into them. Keep an eye out for fungus in St. Augustine yards. This is treatable and is usually caused by overwatering in cool weather. 

Mark S. Ney, Certified Texas Nursery Professional #4749