Kevin - I used to think and need everything all tidy each fall, but I finally got over it. Between home and the cabin it's gotten impossible to be caught up ever. I do though start around the first part of Oct and get the tropical pond plants taken care of (trimmed and brought indoors) and the annuals in about 40+ containers pulled and containers put away. I hold off on any I am still trying to collect seed from though until the bitter end. A lot of the perennials I leave now for the birds. Veggie garden does get cleaned up in the fall. Come spring I complain of all the cleanup still needed, but I tell myself the birds thank me for leaving seed heads for them to munch on in the winter.

Sandy

Well, between the fact that I like to leave everything up as long as possible (even if there's one bloom I don't have the heart to cut it back!) and that I am a procrastinator, I usually do my fall cleanup... in spring! LOL!

Okay, but seriously, I do have a hard time cutting things back early. I went out today and thought I might clear up a few annuals, but of course I didn't. And then when everything gets hit by the frost, it's all so much work that I don't usually get it done. I'll get the annuals pulled up, but I don't always get the perennials cleaned up.

But I don't worry too much about it. At this point in my garden's life, the big job in the fall is getting more beds done - planned, laid out, built, etc. I still have so far to go with that, and I find it easier to work in the cool fall weather. Ripping out annuals is easy compared to that.

I do have about 200 pots to drag into the garage, but I have to wait for everything to go dormant to do that. Last year, it was some time in January! Same thing with the shredded leaves - I don't mulch the beds till the ground is frozen, and that was pretty darn late last year.

I don't know if it was great having that warm fall/winter because it gave me more time to get things done, or if it just made me procrastinate more...

:)
Dee

I will be starting my clean up about the middle of Oct. I have to make sre the walk ways are clean and clear for the trick or treaters.

Paula

I've dumped the bad looking containers, and pulled the frost bitten annuals. I would have cut down the icky looking perennials but I am expanding a garden (Saturday) so I am waiting to cut them when I divide them for the move. I feel like I NEED to be out on a nice autumn day, it would be a crime to waste that nice weather in the house, so I set up for spring. It makes me feel good, and there is plenty to do in the spring! I am with you...Helen.

I start as things begin to go by just so I'm not completely overwhelmed. We had a couple of freezing nights a few weeks ago and that did in the dahlias, but oddly enough nothing else. And the ferns needed to be cut down as well as the brown lily stalks. Just that bit of clearing spruced things up quite a bit. Some of the trees are dropping their leaves already so I'll have a good mix of greens and browns for starting next season's compost - which is another reason to do a fall clean up.

There really is just so much to do in a big yard with big gardens and with October looming, we could get flurries just about any time. I don't want to get caught with things undone this year as I did for the first time last year, but I really hate to discard annuals when they're still looking fairly good or cut down the perennials before they're completely spent.

But I understand looking forward to that killing frost which pretty well ends the dithering about what to do and when to do it. Despite the drought and everything else Nature did or did not throw at us, this was a pretty satisfying gardening season. I worked hard at it, enjoyed it, and will be ready to spend the long winter thinking about next season. Hope everyone else feels that way too.

My garden has a lot of late bloomers and I wait for them all season so I never touch any annuals until the frost gets them...which really does get in the way of my fall work. I have zinnia and cosmos that really didn't start blooming well until the end of August for some reason. Plus I have delphinium reblooming, now who is going to cut back a blooming delphinium. [g] I usually always want to move things around in the fall because I just love to anticipate everything coming up in the right place in the spring. Not that I normally actually get to moving everything that needs it.

This year, though, my garden is not looking as good as usual due to our drought, so I am already pulling some things apart earlier than usual. Already have the plants in for the winter. I don't like plants that are coming in to sit out in below 50 temps because in most cases, it starts to slow their growth.

I love working outdoors in the fall and look forward to being able to do some editing and catching up after the heat of summer. Boy, I am really looking forward to a frost though. This has been a long summer. Dragged the hose from one end of the yard to the other all season and still ended up with some plants looking fried. Not very satisfying at all. I can't wait for a winter rest and a fresh start next year. [g]

pm2

A very lazy one!! LOL

I don't have any container plants (because I forget to water and fertilize them and they never do well), no tender perennials, and I leave pretty much everything standing in the garden except for Peonies and a few plants that look really pathetic (powdery mildew, stunted).

I also let all the leaves, pine needles, etc. that blow into the garden stay there. Free mulch and nature did the work! Yeah! (Mind you I don't have any problems with voles crawling in the mulch, crown rot, stepping on emerging foliage, etc.)

Most of the other leaves in the yard get raked into shrubbery and woodland areas - except for some that I'll run over with the lawn mower and bag to use as mulch next spring. The biggest fall chore seems to be raking the leaves out from under the deck and back away from the foundation, and cleaning out the gutters - they are a pain.

This probably leaves a little more work in the Spring, but I find that once the foliage has dried up, it's very easy to remove for the most part - except the ornamental grasses, which are supposed to be cut in the Spring anyway.

I think this plan is going to work. Each day, I'm deciding what I want to tackle the next day. As long as I know what I want to get done and then do it, it isn't so bad.

I think the containers are the worst and that's probably why I stopped planting so many. Today I was washing some before I put them away for the winter, but forgot to check the bottoms before I started scrubbing. YUCK!! Big, fat slugs all over my rag! Ain't using that one again.

Each year I also dreaded the canna and dahlia digging, so I just tossed all the dahlias and only saved a few cannas. I'm even going to toss more of them this year. I have to weigh how much I really love a plant against how much work it becomes. It turns out I don't love cannas as much as I thought I did.

The late bloomers are kind of a problem, but somehow most of them ended up in my front yard, so I just leave that area until last. As long as I can get the other 2/3 of the yard done, that isn't too bad to deal with later.

Kevin

Another lazy, and disorganized, cleaner upper here, I don't cut most things back after their final burst of bloom. I pretty much just snap the dead stuff off sometime during spring, if at all. The perennials seem to grow faster than I'll ever work so I just let the new foliage hide the old stuff. I, too, am not very good at digging up cannas, dahlias etc, but keep hoping I'll get better at it, as I love dahlias.

Yeona

I don't have one "big" clean up session. I am an untidy gardener, but every year, I surprise myself by being systematic about the clean up job. It does stretch the three months of September, October through to November. Part of the reason for that is because of the nature of my job - I don't live on a regular schedule when it comes to time off. What gets done in the garden and when depends on (1) the weather (2) the plants (3) when I have time off.

For example, early cold weather signifies an early lawn clean up. The final mow is usually the end of October, at which time the mower and trimmers are cleaned for winter storage. That leads to taking care of the other garden tools. After the tools, it's time to take down some of the frost sensitive irrigation hardware. Meanwhile, I will be stock piling fall leaves for winter protecting container plants, and leaf mold/compost. Hostas leaves are cut back within a day or two of the first frost, before they turn into a mess of jelly. Roses are pruned for the winter in late October and mulched by mid November. The mulching of roses is preceded by a final all round weeding in the yard. Once weeding is done, it's time to take care of the fruit trees - dormant spray application, tying down, training, etc. Dormant spraying the fruit trees leads to the same treatment for the roses too. That inevitably then leads to taking care of the bamboos - digging for and removing over-adventurous rhizomes, trimming, etc.

Meanwhile, container grown plants are sorted out to go into indoors, the cold greenhouse, the "warm" greenhouse, or outside wintering. Which inevitably means having the greenhouses cleaned out and tidied by mid October, before I start moving plants in.

And so on and on it goes - one chore triggering the next. By the time December comes, and I am ready to put up the Christmas lights, the garden is ready for the winter slumber. And that's a reminder to switch to winter tires. Having winter tires on the car is usually the signal to take gardening indoors. It's time for forcing bulbs, ordering seeds, looking at (drooling over) catalogues, etc.

There are certain plants I will leave alone - the rose hips, the browned out ornamental grasses and sedum seed heads.

I'm with terrene, I leave most of my stuff standing and clean up in the spring. I do cut back my peonies, browned lily stalks and anything that had powdery mildew. If I leave it till spring, the stalks snap easily and it gives me something to do when I'm dying to be outside playing in my gardens. I do pull the dead annuals and empty and clean pots as well as clean off the veggie garden. In fact my veggie garden is waiting for shredded leaves to be spread over it and tilled in. I'm roughing out my veggie garden plan for next year and deciding where my garlic will go in a couple of weeks.

Cleaning up now? I cant imagine. I have asters and mums that I can expect to keep blooming for atleast 2 weeks.- some asters just started putting on a show now. The agastache is still putting out a show, and the daylily (one- im going to rip it out cause its ugly this spring) is putting out a bloom show right now too. The coneflowers are still at it! If I cut down now I would end my bloom period early for weeks.

Or days... depending on how soon a really hard frost hits, that is.

Even then all is not lost- I donÂt grow frost aster (for blooms) and Amsonia hubrichtii (for fall foliage) in my garden for nothing!

Kevin you ask a good question. Like yourself and many of the folks above I do mine in the fall but since I planted more than ever this year it will be a progressive project. Our weather has turned cold early here and twice this week I had to defrost my car windows before leaving the house so my veggie garden (except the chard) is kaput! Some annuals are looking pretty rough also. So weather permitting I will start pulling today/tomorrow and we are also preparing two beds for next spring this fall. To that end we are picking up a trailer full of horse manure this morning. Yeah!

Kate

Around the 1st of September I selectivly start cutting back. Anything that has no fall interest or that has gotten ratty looking goes first. The containers are dismantled in time to get the things saved that I want to save. Once a frost comes, then the annuals and tropicals. The asters, mums, sedums etc stay up as long as possible. I usually do this all over the months of Sept, Oct and Nov.

Well we HAVE had our first frost and two more since Sept. 20th!
Anyways, I like to clean up my beds in fall mainly because I have many evergreen plants and nice grasses that I want to stand out in winter and not be distracted by ugly brown wilted done with plants! I wait as long as I can because I collect tons of seeds for trades and of course I still have late summer- fall blooming stuff that are still beautiful and going strong. Also quite a few hardy annuals still are blooming.
I like to clean up and make it ready to lay down winter mulch over the bare soil and marginally hardy plants in my zone. I prefer straw and crushed fall leaves and I lay down after the ground begins to freeze.
I don't like letting too much plant debris lay about in case I am harboring overwintering pests and disease. Since I don't use chemicals I have to do my part for prevention :D

Vera

i like to leave some things up for texture with the snow on it, but this year I think that I will cut things down after frost in November or thereabouts. I made a point of cutting down the heavy reseeders today - the agastache, phlox and the rudbeckia.

In threads like this, I always become very aware of the differences between zones or various areas of the country. Around here, if you're not done with the major work by the end of October forget it. By November you can count on most days beings in the 20's, maybe 30's for highs and the ground well on its way to being frozen. Sure we can still have some mild days, but don't count on it.

K

I know- I was shocked that you were cutting down your plants now because you are technically a zone warmer than I am.

I'm going a little nuts now with all the leaves fall into my beds. I want to clean them out.. But i'm thinking I will let the leaves stay in the beds. I've read two theories: that leaving leaves in the beds will promote disease and that leaving the leaves will add extra protection. What's your theory?

Kevin, I was thinking the same thing - lots of differences in zones and areas. I have to keep looking at the poster's zone because I'm surprised that some are already cutting back. Here in my neck of the woods, the annuals are still cranking out pretty darn good, and while there are a few leaves down, I'm not ready to rip things out just yet.

I wish I could bring myself to start cutting back and ripping out earlier than I do, because it sure would be a lot nicer to do it in sunny 74-degree weather (like this weekend!) instead of cold, blustery, cloudy 50-degree (or colder!) weather.

:)
Dee

CactusJoe: You made me tired just reading all your chores! Are you for hire?
Actually, I've done a little clean up here in MD of periennals turned ratty, or just so overgrown and messy, they got an early haircut. If I have time I can be neat, but if cold weather sets in early, I don't worry as I'll build up steam for spring. There is one plant, however, that I do not cut back. The first 5 of the last 25 years I always cut back mums. The last 20 I have let them be, let them catch whatever fall leaves that they would like in their dried branches and I have lost 80% less than when I cut them back. One theory (for us "leave it folks") is that even though the stem looks dead, it helps the plant from getting super cold. Last year during the crazy winter that so many of us had, I had annual blue lobelia and chatreuse fever few , great color, well into January. I don't expect that ever to happen again, but it was a nice change. Like some others, I've cut back on containers, and also my love of cannas. I do dig 2 dalhias up tho... which means that next year, I'll leave a few of them in the ground!
Faye in MD

We are warmer here than Minnesota, but most of October promises to be warm (unlike last year), and so we still have another 2-4 weeks of prime gardening show here. And in my garden fall is a prime show time.

Personally, I would always err on the side of missing the "cleanup" rather than cut the garden down too early. In these parts, cleanup can be saved till early March without a problem. Sure, valuble tender container plants will need to be stowed away in a few weeks. And the frosts will come. But why not wait till the last possible minute? Looks like we aren't going to get a frost here till sometime after the middle of October. So live it up.....let fall be the celebration of the garden it is meant to be.

Well, I think Phase I of the cleanup is done for now. Some beds are totally cut back, others partially, some barely touched since there are so many things in bloom. Most of the tropicals are inside, but there are still a few out there. The Brugs are in full bloom now, so it's going to be a while until they come in. I also pared back the cannas, dug and tossed those I no longer wanted. I'm down to 5 varieties to save. A couple of years ago I had close to 30.

The next phase will start when the temps really start to drop. I always leave the pond until just before the cold stuff arrives. It certainly is no fun playing with water when it's 35 F out there. That will happen most likely within a couple of weeks.

The final phase takes place after the first hard freeze, but it's so hard to tell when that will be.

Kevin

Faye, it is a lot of work if compressed into a weekend, but spread over three months, it's not as taxing as it sounds.

I can't bear to take it down when the weather is still nice as it has been, but I know the more I clean up in the fall, the better the spring will be. Last year cleaning up into January was very helpful! Surprise 80 degree weather this week doesn't help get me into it.

I am still doing edits (that were supposed to be done in September) and I will be planting some bulbs too in October. And there is the new lasagna bed I want to make. And some lawn patching. Oh, there is just not enough time. I am overwhelmed just thinking about what I want to do this fall.

And I have almost 2 yds of mulch still sitting on my driveway for the post-editing and winter mulching.

fall cleaner??? i'm a fall planter myself!!!

I too am a fall planter. I'm traveling this weekend, but my husband is throwing in a last flat of perennials that I picked up on sale. I will probably also move a few things still and still need to buy bulbs that will go in over the next couple of weeks.

I can understand not wanting to be out in the cold to cut things down, but I tend to like it better when all the bugs and creepy crawlies have been knocked out by a few hard frosts or freezes. Some things desperately need to be trimmed down at this point just to keep things looking tidy (e.g. my previous post, also the lily stalks, etc that are finally turning brown), but once you get those out of there, I'm loath to cut down things that are still green and lush. Plants are still building root mass in the fall, and having the photosynthetic food supply helps. Some of the annuals are starting to look a little ratty though - some of my cosmos are decidedly sad looking if you look at the bases of them, but the tops are still blooming happily.

Fall is a beautiful time in my garden, and I've been planting more to improve that show. I cut down only to make sure that all of the stuff that's in its element at this time isn't overshadowed stuff that's past its prime.

I'm a well intended but don't always get to it fall gardener I think. I just hate cutting down things that aren't really brown, and I love seeing the goldfinches and chickadees clustered on the seed heads. Don't want to take away the food sources from the birds, but on the other hand I don't like to clean up on wet cold days. So some years it gets done early, some years it gets done in March.
This strategy is not a great one for things like heliopsis and Rudbeckia because of the dratted reseeding.

Best time for me in the garden as well- gradually I am growing more and more plants that show off well into late fall.
Lazy gardener that I am all I do is to pull leaves from walking path into the flowerbeds- they going to stay there until spring when I lightly clean them up- most of the leaves will serve as mulch and fertilizer. My leaves are from oaks so it safe enough to leave them be. Mid spring I will clean the worst piles, add some more compost and let nature take it course- why bother?
I leave all my plants as it is for another reason- they seems to survive better that way and some plants come almost evergreen through the winter. I do sprinkle sluggo until late Oct to make sure slugs population is not multiplies over winter.

I agree you have to be cognizant of the weather in your particular area. We always have mild days here and there before winter truly sets in. I've been known to be out in the garden in December cleaning up the stragglers.

I clean out the pots, annuals, tropicals, dahlias, etc. first - which I just started last weekend. I'll do those in stages so I'm not killing myself all at once. I also have a pond to contend with, so those plants take priority right now. I'll leave the grasses up all winter. I try not to cut down everything or it wouldn't be a pleasant garden to behold. I heartily agree with your comment about plants like dahlias and cannas. I also used to try to overwinter tree roses and other fussy annuals. I spent inordinate amounts of time on them. Now I just toss them and start over next year and treat them as annuals. I like trying different varieties anyway.