Events

Brown Bag Seminar at noon on the second and fourth Thursdays at the Clallam County Courthouse (commissioners meeting room), 223 E. Fourth St., Port Angeles:

Sept. 11: No bare soil – cover crops and mulches

Sept. 25: What to plant in fall

Class Act Seminar from 10-11 a.m. Saturdays at the Demonstration Garden, 2711 Woodcock Road, Sequim:

Sept. 13: Mushrooms

Sept. 27: What to plant in the fall and why

Join us for Friday Walks in the Garden from noon-1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 12, at the 5th Street Community Garden, 328 E. Fifth St. in Port Angeles. This is the only opportunity remaining this year for fun and educational garden walks.

General garden advice

With the arrival of cooler temperatures and the return of rain this month, summer is slowly coming to an end. This is the time to start thinking about getting the garden in shape for winter.

If you move plants, do it at least a month before the expected date of the first hard frost. If you moved houseplants outdoors for the summer, it’s time to bring them back inside. Rake deciduous tree leaves as they fall and use them to mulch flowerbeds for the winter or save them for compost. Continue to water as usual until the rains return.

Caring for your ornamental garden

• Annuals – Replace tired-looking annuals with pansies, violas, annual chrysanthemums and ornamental kale and cabbage. Deadhead the remaining ones to keep them blooming for another month or so. Pull out annuals with powdery mildew but do not compost them. Collect seed from California poppy, cosmos and calendula plants or leave them to reseed your garden.

• Bulbs, corms, rhizomes and tubers – Keep cutting dahlia blooms. Dahlia plants will keep blooming until the first hard frost. Buy spring flowering bulbs this month to plant next month. Hold them in a cool, dry place. If you want your amaryllis to bloom for Christmas, put it in a dark, dry spot, stop watering, and let the leaves dry back. Leave it there until mid-November.

• Lawns – Fertilize after the rains come with a 3-1-2 slow-release formula. Renovate the lawn late this month by thatching, aerating and over-seeding. Now is an ideal time to install new lawns.

• Perennials – Continue to deadhead roses, but by the end of the month, let the old flowers go to hips (seeds) to help harden off plants for winter. To overwinter non-hardy fuchsias and geraniums, cut them back and store them in a dry place that will not freeze. Cut peony stems to the ground after the leaves fall, but do not compost the foliage. Plant new peonies, but avoid moving or dividing old peonies since they like to stay in the same place. Divide spring-flowering perennials. Sow very hardy perennial seeds.

• Shrubs and trees – Plant new trees and shrubs (see sidebar). Water them until the rains return. Transplant deciduous shrubs after the leaves have fallen. Do not apply any fertilizer or prune since this will stimulate new growth.

Care for your edible garden

• Berries – Remove debris around all berry plants. Apply manure in fall/winter to allow breakdown before spring. Clean up and thin strawberries. Remove weak, old and crowded plants to achieve narrow rows. Apply a layer of mulch after the first hard frost for winter protection. Prune out second-year raspberry and blackberry canes (canes that just fruited). Trellis first-year canes of trailing blackberries unless you live at a higher elevation.

• Fruit trees – Harvest apples when seeds turn brown and pears when full-sized but hard.

• Vegetables – Direct seed corn salad, cilantro, arugula and winter lettuce. Sow a cover crop in the summer vegetable beds as they are emptied. Mulch beds that won’t hold winter or cover crops. Harvest winter squash and pumpkins when their stems begin to shrivel and dry and when the skin is so hard that it can’t be pierced with your fingernail. In any case, be sure to harvest them before the first hard frost. Tomatoes will not vine ripen with the advent of cool night temperatures. Pick almost ripened and shiny green tomatoes to finish ripening inside.

How to plant trees, shrubs

1. Dig a hole two to three times the diameter of the new plant’s root ball and no deeper than its height.

2. Rough up the sides of the hole and save all of the soil you remove, breaking it up if necessary. Water the soil in the hole well.

3. Unwrap the plant and loosen the outer roots from the ball shape. Untangle or cut encircling roots and place the plant in the hole.

4. Back fill around the plant with the pulverized original soil you saved. Do not add anything to this soil. Fill the hole half way, firm to eliminate air pockets but do not tamp it down. Water well.

5. Finish filling the hole with the original soil, firm again and water thoroughly.

6. Mulch with 2-4 inches of rich compost to nourish and protect the roots. Do not fertilize new plantings.

7. If the plant needs staking, attach ties low on the trunk so the top can flex; remove stakes within a year of planting.

Lois Bellamy and Bill Wrobel are Washington State University-certified, Clallam County Master Gardeners.